News and Document archive source
copyrighted material disclaimer at bottom of page

NewsMine9-11forewarned — Viewing Item


Nsa tracked 911 hijacker

Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
   http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,466609,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,466609,00.html

Did the NSA Lose a Sept. 11 Hijacker?
The congressional 9/11 commission says intelligence officials dropped the ball while watching one of the men who carried out the Pentagon attack
By ELAINE SHANNON

Wednesday, Jul. 23, 2003
The National Security Agency missed a prime opportunity in early 2000 to crack the Sept. 11 plot, according to a forthcoming congressional investigation of the attacks. The report of the House and Senate Intelligence committees, to be released Thursday, will say that the NSA intercepted and analyzed "several communications" between future 9/11 hijacker Khalid al Midhar and an al-Qaeda safe house in the Middle East. But despite the agency's vaunted signals intelligence (SIGINT) technology, which enables it to intercept telephone, radio, cell phone, e-mail and fax messages worldwide, the NSA didn’t realize that the messages, from someone vaguely identified as "Khalid," originated in the U.S., the report charges. As a result, the FBI wasn’t alerted to what could have been a valuable lead.

According to sources who have read congressional report, the Al Midhar-Al Hazmi story is an example of how tantalizingly close U.S. agencies came to unmasking some of the 9/11 suicide hijackers. The report does not charge that U.S. intelligence agencies possessed intelligence that predicted the coming catastrophe. But, sources say, it raises troubling questions about whether the attacks might have been averted if U.S. intelligence and law enforcement personnel had spotted just a few more clues and had initiated round-the-clock physical, telephone and e-mail surveillance of even one or two of the terrorists.

It is now known that at the time the calls came into the safe house, Khalid Al Midhar was living in San Diego, with another prospective hijacker, Nawaf Al Hazmi. According to officials with access to the congressional report, the NSA began closely monitoring calls to the safe house in the fall of 1998. In early 2000, someone calling himself “Khalid” communicated with the safe house, according to the congressional report. NSA analysts apparently did not recognize the caller to be Al Midhar.

NSA director Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden testified last fall that the NSA identified Al Hazmi as an al-Qaeda associate in early 1999 and by January 2000 had him and his frequent companion, Al Midhar and Al Hazmi “in our sights." That month, the pair traveled to Kuala Lumpur to attend a meeting with other bin Laden operatives and were watched by U.S. intelligence.

After staying in Kuala Lumpur from Jan. 5 2000 to Jan. 8, 2001, Al Midhar and Al Hazmi traveled to Southeast Asia with Walid Ba'Attash, aka Khallad, a Yemeni ethnic with Saudi citizenship who has been identified as the organizer of the USS Cole bombing in October 2000. Then Al Midhar and Al Hazmi flew to Los Angeles, arriving Jan. 15, 2001, and made their way to San Diego, where they settled into an apartment and began studying aviation and English. Al Midhar flew to Saudi Arabia on June 10, 2000, where, according to FBI officials, he organized the "muscle" hijackers for the 9/11 attacks. Al Midhar returned to the U.S. through on July 4, 2001. He was not on any terror watch list, although both the CIA and NSA had sketchy information about his al-Qaeda ties, and so was allowed to vanish into America.

The finger-pointing has already begun in advance the 9/11 report's Thursday release. The document harshly criticizes the FBI for failing to analyze the information scattered through its badly organized files and for not working well with the CIA. The FBI plans to counter with a lengthy rebuttal.

The CIA will also take its lumps. The report faults the agency for failing to cultivate human sources within al-Qaeda’s central command inside Afghanistan. CIA officials concede they did not penetrate leader Osama bin Laden’s inner circle, where knowledge of the 9/11 plot was confined. But they insist that they had many well-placed midlevel sources. That intelligence, they say, enabled their paramilitary units to search out and destroy al-Qaeda camps and safe houses once President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan.

The report suggests that prior to 9/11, both the Clinton and Bush White Houses failed to provide adequate money for counter-terror intelligence. “The Democrats are trying to cover their butts for the Clinton years," says one Administration hand, " and the Republicans are trying to cover their butts for the year after that, and this is all going to be muddled into an ugly partisan mess."




informants
june-02-story-broke
leaks-probe
post-may-15-02
translator-sibel-edmonds
911 documents show hijacking warnings { April 10 2004 }
911 invest hindered { May 9 2002 }
911 warned lies
Able danger intelligence unit identified hijackers { August 12 2005 }
Able danger officer expands allegations { August 17 2005 }
Able danger weldon under fbi investigation { October 16 2006 }
Advanced warning fox { April 12 2002 }
Agent says fbi blocked efforts to stop 911
Agent spent 4 weeks warning fbi { March 21 2006 }
Alabama republican senator leaked classified information to fox { August 5 2004 }
Alarms ignored panel told by clark
Alqaeda trainee warned FBI { June 3 2004 }
Alqaida briefing to bush one month before 911 { April 10 2004 }
Ashcroft cuts counter terrorism before 911 { May 21 2002 }
Ashcroft doesnt fly commercial before 911 { July 26 2001 }
Ashcroft refuses to fly commercial before 9 11 { April 13 2004 }
Barriers to inquiry { September 19 2002 }
Bremer said bush waiting for major incident { April 30 2004 }
Bush briefed about hijackings right before 911
Bush told alqaeda plots hijacking airplanes { November 13 2003 }
Bush took holiday after terror attack memo { August 6 2001 }
Cia defends response to tip about sept 11 { February 24 2004 }
Cia knew extremists were taking flight lessons
Cia moussauoi { June 4 2002 }
Cia not to blame { January 24 2003 }
Cia warned of aviation attack 1995
Cia warns extremists taking flight lessons
Cia was given data on hijacker long before 911 { February 24 2004 }
Clinton plan
Cnn 95 wtc warning
Commission wants cia author of bin laden warning { April 14 2004 }
Congress inquiry { June 5 2002 }
Faa alerted on alqaeda hijackings in 1998 { September 14 2005 }
Fbi admits to moussaoui defense that fbi knew { March 7 2006 }
Fbi bosses thwarted 911 investigation { March 21 2006 }
Fbi warned bosses about moussaoui 70 times { March 21 2006 }
Former fbi chief asks why commission ignored able danger { November 17 2005 }
Gore accuses bush on 911
Intelligence document warns binladen attack inside us
Investigation leak for nsa 911 warning { January 22 2004 }
Israel warned
Kpfa vreeland
Military intelligence warned of atta in summer 2000 { August 9 2005 }
More fbi translator whisteblowers { November 30 2004 }
Morgan stanley warned and employees saved on 911 { October 28 2001 }
Moussaoui defense says fbi know more than suspect { March 7 2006 }
New 911 report shows many warnings about hijackings { February 10 2005 }
Norad conducted mock hijackings with airliners as weapons
Norad had drills of jets as weapons
Nsa tracked 911 hijacker
Panel says bush saw repeated warnings
Pentagon denies claims by able danger { September 11 2001 }
Pentagon knew hijackers link to alqaeda { August 10 2005 }
Pentagon top brass cancels their flights on 911
Pre 911 briefing said that qaeda active in us { April 11 2004 }
Pre alqaeda plan
Probe hindered { September 18 2002 }
Probers say failure { September 19 2002 }
Rice brushed off major cia 911 warning { October 2 2006 }
Rockefeller covers up able danger whistleblower { December 26 2006 }
Sam byck attempts airliner into white house 1974 { January 30 1930 }
Security lowered right before 911 { September 12 2001 }
Senator specer wants answers about able danger { September 21 2005 }
Taliban warned
Tenet defends 1999 threat information { February 24 2004 }
US warned in 1995 of plane building attack
Zelikow prepares for 911 [pdf]

Files Listed: 67



Correction/submissions

CIA FOIA Archive

National Security
Archives
Support one-state solution for Israel and Palestine Tea Party bumper stickers JFK for Dummies, The Assassination made simple