Pakistan, the Taliban, and al Qaida
The government of Pakistan, or at least its intelligence service (often called a state within a state) and its military, also seems to have played a major role in carrying out the 9/11 attacks and aiding al Qaida. Pakistan's connections to the Taliban are well-known, but less well known are its continued shielding of al Qaida and the Taliban, which in some ways is a seamless subsidiary of the ISI.
The ISI and the Taliban
Former National Coordinator of Counterterrorism Richard Clarke and others say that the ISI formed the Taliban and helped the Taliban get al Qaida's support. An unnamed CIA connected regional specialist told The Times of India (3/7/01) that the Taliban were "on the payroll of the ISI." In November 2001 the WSJ said "Despite their clean chins and pressed uniforms, the ISI men are as deeply fundamentalist as any bearded fanatic; the ISI created the Taliban as their own instrument and still support it." Reactionary California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher accused the US government under Clinton of aiding Pakistan in promoting the Taliban. At a hearing of the House Committee on International Relations July 12, 2000, Rohrabacher said "Everybody in the region knows that Pakistan is involved with a massive supply of military weapons and has been since the beginning of the Taliban" (lengthy quotes are in Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon). Rohrabacher is a knowledgeable source because of his continuing connections to the anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban Afghan mujahideen; he even entered Afghanistan with them during the 80's and 90's. Rohrbacher says that the Taliban succeeded in taking most of Afghanistan thanks to Pakistani supplies while the US weakened the anti-Taliban forces. In June 2001 reporters for UPI visited Taliban areas and alleged that Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis were reimbursing Pakistan for its aid to the Taliban. Pakistan denied this, but UPI said "the Taliban is entirely dependent on Pakistani aid. This was verified on the ground by UPI. Everything from bottled water to oil, gasoline and aviation fuel, and from telephone equipment to military supplies, comes from Pakistan" (6/14/01). Clinton visited Pakistan in March 2000 over objections from the Secret Service over the risk posed by the ISI's links to terrorists, but as a precaution Air Force One was used as a decoy (NYT, 10/29/01). The US used Pakistan to get messages to the Taliban prior to the 2001 conquest of Afghanistan.
The CIA, ISI, the Taliban, al Qaida, and other fundamentalists were all involved in the opium trade. According to Alfred McCoy, a University of Wisconsin professor of Southeast Asian history, the CIA was "willing to work with people [the mujahideen] who were heavily involved in narcotics" (cited in The Terror Timeline). Around half of the US aid to counterrevolutionary forces in Afghanistan went to the arch-fundamentalist (and now anti-US guerilla) warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was also an important part of the heroin trade and a comrade of bin Laden in the 80's. The CIA is or has been involved in the drug trade outside of Afghanistan, for example in trading operating out of Mena, Arkansas. According to the Asian edition of The Financial Times (8/10/01) the ISI profited from heroin in the 80's and encouraged it, trying to addict Soviet soldiers, and now sends it to the West. Allegedly the trade is all that kept the Pakistani economy from collapsing.
According to the Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Yossef Bodansky, bin Laden set up an arrangement after moving to Afghanistan in 1996 whereby he gets 15% of the profits in return for protecting and facilitating the trade. Financial Times estimated that in early 1999 bin Laden controlled 10% of the Afghan trade, bringing in a profit of as much as $1 billion dollars (out of a total annual Afghan drug profit of 6.5 to 10 billion dollars). That same year the UN's Drug Control Programme estimated that the ISI had about $2.5 billion in drug profits. The ISI director allegedly involved in 9/11 was put in place by military coup leader General Pervez Musharraf after former Director Brig Imtiaz was convicted of having millions of dollars from the drug trade in a Deutschbank account, a bank whose name crops up repeatedly in the story of 9/11. Vanity Fair (3/1/02) alleges that the ISI is still a drug trafficker, and that Pakistan has a $15 billion dollar drug economy (and a $60 billion dollar legal economy), which US policy rewards. Michael Ruppert speculates that the Taliban cracked down on opium production as "a form of economic warfare that might take a whole lot of money out of the world's banking system and its cooked books."
Reportedly Musharraf was for aiding the US against the Taliban at a high-level meeting after 9/11, and was opposed by four top officers, who were soon removed from office. They were then ISI Director Ahmed, Lt. Gen. Muzaffar Usmani, Lt. Gen. Jamshaid Gulzar Kiani, and Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan. This may not be a true report though, because Ahmed was in the US until the 16th and then Afghanistan and another country (Guardian, 5/25/02).
Pakistan was also benevolent to its domestic terrorists and fundamentalists who were a base for Musharraf and past military rulers. For example, in January 2002 Pakistan arrested about 2000 militants, but 800 or more were let go before February, "most of their firebrand leaders" included, according to Time magazine (5/6/02), and most of the rest over the year, and most of the terrorist groups reformed under new names according to the WP (2/8/03).
Former Afghan anti-communist mujahideen leader Abdul Haq was betrayed by the US, which apparently wanted to sideline him as it did with Ahmed Shah Masood. Haq offered in February 2001 to fight the Taliban in southern Afghanistan with 50 other mujahideen leaders, but he supported former Afghan king Zahir Shah, exiled in Italy after a military coup in the mid-70's. The CIA refused to back the operation. In October 2001 he infiltrated into Afghanistan but was surrounded by the Taliban, resulting in a 12 hour battle. He appealed to his ally Robert McFarlane, Reagan's National Security Adviser, who asked the CIA to assist, and it refused. Haq was near a former helicopter landing point, but the CIA said the terrain did not allow an airlift. Five hours after Haq was captured, a unmanned drone was used to attack the Taliban. Haq was executed. Former CIA director of counterterrorism Vincent Cannistraro and others accused the ISI of betraying Haq, and the ISI might have been behind the murder of Haq's family.
November 14-25, 2001 the US reportedly let thousands of Pakistanis and others fighting with the Taliban and al Qaida escape by air from Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan. Among those escaping were two Pakistani generals and numerous senior officers, Taliban leaders, and possibly part of Osama bin Laden's family. According to the NYT (11/24/01) Pakistan helped non-Afghan soldiers escape in 50 trucks. Supposedly the deal was made to keep Musharraf in power, and it was supposed to be limited and with US questioning, but then it got out of control. India said that by the last three days of the escape, 5000 flew out and the last 3000 surrendered. The US and Pakistan denied that it happened. This mirrors unopposed al Qaida and Taliban retreats to Jalalabad and Tora Bora in the south.
Many Taliban officials are free in Afghanistan and Taliban. One of them told the Guardian newspaper (12/24/01) that "Some are living in luxury in fine houses, they are not hiding in holes" and could be arrested quickly. Four or more senior leaders were released after capture. The US did not question Mullah Haji Abdul Samat Khaksar, the second highest Taliban leader held by the US, for months and despite his willingness to talk, for example about continuing ISI and Taliban cooperation against the US (Time, 2/19 and 2/25/02). Taliban general Mullah Akhter Mohammed Osmani was let go a few weeks after being captured and fled to Pakistan, though the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said Osmani was never captured (Washington Times, 12/18/02).
ISI-bin Laden collaboration
When bin Laden joined the war in Afghanistan in 1984, he worked with the Maktab al-Khidmar (MAK), a Pakistani front for supporting the mujahideen, which MSNBC (8/24/98) says the ISI "nurtured," the ISI being the USA's proxy. Gerald Posner claims in his book, mentioned above, Why America Slept, that, according to former CIA agents, bin Laden repeatedly met with ISI Director General Akhtar Abdul Rahman (in office 1980-87) in Peshawar, Pakistan. Allegedly they had a system in which the opium trade was taxed, bringing in as much as $100 million dollars a year in 1985. Posner also claims that bin Laden and Abu Zubaida met with high-ranking Pakistani military leaders, such as Mushaf Ali Mir (he became the head of the air force in 2000) in June 1996. This was just after bin Laden had relocated to Afghanistan and a month after the alleged meeting with Saudi officials in Paris. Pakistan wanted al Qaida to support the Taliban, in return for Pakistani protection, and soon bin Laden did move from non-Taliban Jalalabad to Kandahar, a major base of the Taliban. Mir is one of those who died in strange circumstances shortly after he was allegedly revealed as a sympathizer with foreknowledge of the 9/11 plot by Zubaida in US custody in spring 2002. Posner reports that seven months after the alleged assassinations in Saudi Arabia, a recently inspected Pakistani air force plane went down, in fine conditions, claiming Mir, his wife, and others.
According to the New Yorker magazine (7/28/03), former ISI Director Hamid Gul informed the Taliban in July 1999 that the USA was not planning to attack them over bin Laden and he said he would warn them 3-4 hours before any US missile strike, alluding to a previous warning. Richard Clark suspects that Gul warned al-Qaida about the strikes in August 1998 and the US military suspected that Pakistan was warning about missile attacks. According to the UPI (7/22/04), a high-ranking official anonymously gave a document to the 9/11 Commission accusing Gul of being behind 9/11. The document pointed out that Gul admittedly admires bin Laden. Allegedly the CIA called Gul "'the most dangerous man' in Pakistan," and a high-ranking Pakistani leader thinks Gul "was Osama bin Laden's master planner" (The Terror Timeline and UPI). Knowledgeable people have questioned how al Qaida could have planned and pulled off the 9/11 attacks without state intelligence sponsorship (more on this below).
ISI agents are allegedly involved in getting advanced weapons for al Qaida and condoned attacks on American civilians. Randy Glass was an American informant involved in stings investigating weapons transfers to al-Qaida. July 14, 1999 Glass met at a restaurant in New York City with two illict weapons traffickers, Diaa Mohsen and Mohammed Malik, Shireen Shawky, a former judge from Egypt, and Rajaa Gulum Abbas, an ISI officer. FBI agents were undercover nearby. Abbas wanted to obtain stolen US military equipment for al Qaida. Abbas three times said there would be attacks on the WTC, including pointing out the window and reportedly saying "Those towers are coming down." He also said "Americans [are] the enemy" and that "We would have no problem blowing up this entire restaurant because it is full of Americans" (several media sources are cited in The Terror Timeline). The group met again August 17th at a warehouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, to inspect Stinger missiles, the anti-aircraft weapon that the mujahideen found very effective in downing Soviet aircraft. Abbas and Malik were identified as being connected to the Pakistan-backed guerillas fighting in India-controlled Kashmir and the Taliban, and the missiles were for either group. Mohsen said Abbas was in contact with "dignitaries" and bin Laden. Abbas wanted to buy heavy water for a dirty bomb or other radioactive substances and said a Pakistani scientist would come to inspect the merchandise. They wanted to pay in part with heroin.
Mohsen and Malik were arrested over the Stingers June 12, 2001. Mohsen claimed to be linked to the Taliban and al Qaida. He pled guilty after 9/11, but was only imprisoned for 30 months and his connections to Pakistan were covered up. Malik was apparently let go and his court records sealed, and he worked at a Florida store less than a year afterward. The indictments of Abbas and Malik failed to mention their ties to Pakistan, the Taliban, or who they were seeking weaponry for. Kevin Ingram, a former Deutschbank senior investment banker (he resigned January 1999 after his division lost a lot of money), pled guilty to laundering $350,000 dollars and received an 18-month jail sentence. Pilot Walter Kapij had a small role, but was imprisoned for 33 months. Glass had 13 felony fraud charges, but acting as an informant reduced his punishment to 7 months in jail. Abbas was secretly indicted in June 2002, but MSNBC (8/2/02) easily contacted him by phone in Pakistan that August. Others, such as Shireen Shawky, were left alone. The FBI hindered the operation by not classifying it as counterintelligence and the Miami supervisor would not fund the sting, so Customs and Glass himself paid for it. Prosecutors often refused to allow phonetapping for the investigation.
That summer Egyptian agents found Ahmed al-Khadir, a friend of bin Laden and suspected of involvement in the 1995 bombing of Egypt's embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. They surrounded his location and asked the ISI for support, which the ISI granted. Then the ISI sent a car with diplomatic plates and Taliban fighters that freed al-Khadir and took him to Afghanistan (Time magazine, 5/6/02). In June 2002 the ISI is thought to have sheltered three al Qaida fighters who had just killed 10 soldiers. Reportedly the FBI and Pakistani security no longer notify the ISI of intended raids and the ISI does not share information with other Pakistani forces (from the Independent, 7/21/02).
The well-respected Jane's Defense Digest (9/20/01) confirmed Indian intelligence that bin Laden received kidney dialysis at a military hospital in Peshawar. According to CBS News (1/28/02) bin Laden was in Rawalpindi, Pakistan for treatment on September 10, 2001. Reportedly the military gave him security and the regular urology staff were removed and outsiders treated bin Laden. Asia Times (8/22/02) reported that the US wanted Pakistan to cooperate in capturing or killing bin Laden, but "a very strong lobby" in the Pakistani military was against cooperation. Reportedly the Taliban was open to negotiation about bin Laden that month, but Pakistan did not want to discuss bin Laden. In December 2001 Younis Qanooni, Afghanistan's Interior Minister, said the ISI assisted bin Laden in escaping from Afghanistan and were aiding him, with or without Musharraf's support.
Ahmad Shah Masood, a leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance and a popular mujahideen leader, was assassinated September 9, 2001 by two alleged al Qaida members disguised as journalists. September 14th the Northern Alliance claimed in a press release that a "Pakistani ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" (Reuters, 9/15/01) was behind the killing.
The kidnapping and murder of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl while he was reportedly investigating ISI linked terrorists and US support for the ISI provides more evidence of the ISI's state terrorism. He was kidnapped January 23, 2002 and known to be dead February 22nd, but is believed to have been murdered January 31st. 9/11 funder Saeed Sheikh (see below) was indicted for the kidnapping, but others apparently actually carried out the operation and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has also been named as a plotter, and allegedly is the person who murdered Pearl. A new group, the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, claimed credit, and US intelligence thought it was connected to the ISI. Its demands were unusual, such as asking for the repatriation of Pakistanis held by the USA, withdrawal of all American reporters in Pakistan, and for the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. That was the first such demand by terrorists, but acquiring the jets is longtime wish of the Pakistani government. January 19th a high-ranking government official, many assume within the ISI, told the Pakistani media that Peral is Jewish, possibly to persuade the kidnappers to kill Pearl. November 10, 2001 the ISI merely deported Christina Lamb of the Daily Telegraph, who was in Pakistan researching ISI-Taliban ties.
Saeed Sheikh turned himself in to his former ISI superior, Ijaz Shah, a few days after the Pakistani police threatened family members. The ISI detained him for a week before they notified the police and they refuse to say what happened during that time. Saeed implied to the media that his family would be harmed if he said what happened. According to Thompson's Terror Timeline, only one American media report he looked at connected Saeed to the ISI, al Qaida, and the funding of 9/11, and fewer connections were mentioned in coverage of his July 2002 trial in Pakistan. The UK's media gave more play to the links. Saeed expected little punishment, according to a Newsweek story (3/11/02) and an article in The News newspaper of Pakistan reported that Saeed told the police that he was involved in terrorism in Kashmir and against the Indian parliament, and that he collaborated with the ISI in paying for, planning, and carrying out the parliament attack. The ISI intimidated The News into firing the four reporters for that article and the editor left the country instead of giving in to the ISI's request for an apology. Saeed later withdrew his confession. In the US then Secretary of State Powell said the ISI could not be involved, while then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said the ISI was involved. Musharraf reportedly wanted Saeed hung, but also blamed Pearl for his own death, for being "over-intrusive" in "intelligence games" (cited in The Terror Timeline). The US indicted Saeed in March 2002, but, out of Saeed's long terrorist career, only referred to his involvement with al Qaida in the fall of 2001, and did not mention his role in 9/11, and not one journalist brought this up with then Attorney General Ashcroft. The FBI had access to Saeed only in February, and could not ask about him about al Qaida. The justice of the secret trial that sentenced Saeed to death is doubtful (see The Terror Timeline), though few in the US media questioned it. The British media did better on this. Seven or more involved in the plot and linked to the ISI were not found and arrested. According to Associated Press (AP) articles (8/1 and 8/7/03) the four men convicted in the Daniel Pearl case were not present where Pearl was confined and killed and three suspects arrested in May 2002 were being held secretly so that Saeed would be convicted.
Many former intelligence, military, and other government officials in the USA and elsewhere have expressed doubt that al Qaida had the ability to carry out 9/11 by itself. For example, former Egyptian military Major General Dr. Mahmoud Khalaf, a fellow of the Higher Military Academy of Egypt and a member of the British Royal College of Defence Studies, among other honors, said at a presentation at the University of Cairo's Center for Asian Studies (12/5/01) that he thought the attack would have taken 100 or more specialists a year to plan and that the only question is "That there is no proportionality between the performance of the operation and the performance of bin Laden and his followers." The former director of the CIA's Afghan activities, Milton Beardman, told CBS Evening News interviewer Dan Rather that it looked like a state was involved and that "if they didn't have an Osama bin Laden, they would have invented one" (9/12/01). The Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Fellow in Strategic Assessment and a former official in several US military and foreign affairs offices, as well as NATO, Dr. Anthony Cordesman, said "There is a level of sophistication and co-ordination that no counterterrorism expert had ever previously anticipated, and we don't have a group that we can immediately identify that has this kind of capability" (AP, 9/11/01). There is overwhelming evidence that the plot was known beforehand though, and that the US was aware of the idea of hijacking airliners to use as missiles. A former Egyptian Foreign Minister and a top political commentator, Mohamed Heikal, said "Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude…They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organization and sophistication" (The Guardian, 10/10/01). A former President of the German internal intelligence agency denied that a "loose group" such as Mohammed Atta's cell in Hamburg, Germany could have carried out 9/11, instead saying the operations must have been "state organized actions" (American Free Press, 12/4/01).
Jane's Intelligence Digest wrote (September 20, 2001): "It is becoming clear that both the Taliban and al-Qaeda would have found it difficult to have continued functioning – including the latter group's terrorist activities – without substantial aid and support from Islamabad [the government of Pakistan]." In The Terror Timeline Thompson writes "To date, this author has not uncovered a single mainstream U.S. media outlet that has seriously explored the possibility of Pakistani involvement in the 9/11 plot."
The ISI's role in 9/11
The ISI's direct role in perpetrating the 9/11 attacks can be seen by following the money and planning from al Qaida members identified as responsible, back to the Director of the ISI that fall. Saeed Sheikh apparently handled the funding and some of the training for the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed planned and controlled the plot for al Qaida, and former ISI Director Mahmoud Ahmed knew about the plot and told Saeed to send money to the future hijackers. Bin Laden and most of the men identified as the hijackers are Saudi and all are Arab, but key facilitators are Pakistani, and associated with the Pakistani government, which has numerous ties to terrorism against many nations.
Saeed Sheikh
Saeed Sheikh has already been referred to above as a terrorist associated with the ISI who gave funds and credit help to the alleged 9/11 hijackers. Saeed is of Pakistani origin and attended al Qaida and ISI terrorism training after dropping out of the London School of Economics, despite being what Thompson calls a "brilliant" student. He was a trainer at those camps by the middle of 1994 and then got involved in operations in India to kidnap Western tourists, including British citizens. Reportedly his ISI supervisor was Ijaz Shah, the official he surrendered to in 2002. In October 1994 he was arrested and jailed for 5 years in India. The ISI paid for his defense. In prison Saeed made contact with Indian organized crime and Maulana Masood Azhar and his group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, linked to al Qaida.
Through a prisoner exchange after an Indian airliner was hijacked and flown to Afghanistan, Saeed became free in December 1999. The London Times alleged (7/16/02) that the UK offered Saeed amnesty in return for intelligence about al Qaida, but was refused. He was still able to visit his parents there in 2000 and 2001 though. September 23, 2001 the UK reportedly sought India's help in finding Saeed. After being freed he traveled to Kandahar and met with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and bin Laden, who reportedly called Saeed "my special son." He returned to Pakistan where the ISI gave him a house and he had connections to several ISI officials and was at "swanky parties attended by senior Pakistani officials" (Vanity Fair, August 2002). Several media reports said he was collaborating with Ijaz Shah, who had been the ISI's contact with two terrorist organizations, Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan, former deputy chief of the ISI and a link between the ISI and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and former ISI Brigadier Abdullah. He allegedly traveled repeatedly to terrorism training camps and contributed to training the hijackers, securing al Qaida's Internet communications, and working on a bin Laden interview video. Supposedly he was considered a candidate to replace bin Laden. He helped fund and train kidnapping operatives for an Indian gangster based in the UAE, in return for some of the ransom money. Saeed received $100,000 dollars for one kidnapping in August 2001 and transferred it to Mohammed Atta in the USA. Abdulrahman A. A. Al-Ghamdi, allegedly one of KSM's aliases, got a credit card on one of Mustafa Al-Hawsawi's accounts, allegedly one of Saeed's aliases. Saeed may be the Mustafa Ahmed who gave about $325,000 dollars to Mohammed Atta (see Thompson's Timeline). The 9/11 Commission says "the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks…[is] of little practical importance" and said the government was not able to trace it. Saeed is also thought to have worked with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the Pearl plot. Supposedly both were arrested in 2003, but witnesses did not see them there.
Saeed is thought to have retreated to Pakistan and Afghanistan, from the UAE, on September 11th. Reportedly he met with bin Laden and fought with the Taliban, then was an intermediary as the ISI worked to hide bin Laden. In October 2001 he openly lived in Lahore, Pakistan and often attended parties with government officials and held a party when a child was born in January. He went into hiding four days before the Pearl kidnapping. Thompson notes that the US media often used Saeed's aliases or identified him as other people, especially after Saeed is linked to ISI Director Mahmoud, and they generally did not link Saeed to 9/11 when they reported on the Pearl murder. The FBI did not try to find the aliases, but apparently also used them to confuse the public, according to Thompson.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (3/3/02) "There are many in Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA. The theory is that…Saeed Sheikh was bought and paid for."
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Mohammed is a Pakistani who grew up in Kuwait and came to the USA for college, then went to Afghanistan in the late 80's, reportedly meeting bin Laden. In the mid-90's he was involved in planning and attempting terrorism in the Philippines, while spending money freely, drinking, pursuing women, etc., like some of the 9/11 hijackers he reportedly commanded. He escaped capture over the Bojinka plot to explode or suicide hijack airliners. He lived openly in Qatar, with the help of Interior Minister Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani. In 1998 the US revealed that Mohammed had been involved in Bojinka and placed a $2 million dollar reward for his capture and produced posters. The effort was less than that to find his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, and he was not listed in the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list until August 2001. According to one official "We had identified him as a major al-Qaeda operative before September 11," though officials said after 9/11 that Mohammed somehow went unnoticed (NYT, 9/22/02).
By June 2001 the US knew he was trying to infiltrate agents into the USA and the National Security Agency recorded telephone calls between Mohammed and Atta around that time, but apparently did not tell the FBI. The NSA also recorded Mohammed giving Atta the final go-ahead signal on September 10. Using his picture on a Saudi passport under an alias, he got a visa to enter the USA in July 2001 (LAT, 1/27/04). June 4, 2002 the US announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the "mastermind" of the 9/11 plot. Most of the media ignored his links to the ISI. Allegedly Mohammed replaced Abu Zubaida when he was captured March 28, 2002.
Supposedly Mohammed is now a prisoner of the USA and providing information of questionable veracity, under torture. Pakistani and Indian journalists reported that he was capture June 16, 2002, but Pakistan and the US denied it. September 11, 2002 he might have been killed or almost caught when Ramzi bin al-Shibh was caught in Karachi. Finally, March 1, 2003 a joint Pakistani and FBI operation allegedly caught Mohammed and Mustafa Ahmed Al-Hawsawi in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Witnesses denied this and there were various versions of how it happened. "Foreign journalists looking at [an ISI video of the raid] laughed and said this is baloney, this is a reconstruction" (3/10/03).
Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmed
Mahmoud Ahmed became director of the ISI after General Musharraf removed Ahmed's predecessor for corruption. According to sources such as Ghost Wars by Steve Coll, Ahmed was one of the main forces behind Musharraf's seizure of power. The WP (12/19/01) characterized Mahmoud as a "leading Taliban supporter" and reportedly he was involved in funding the 9/11 attack. India claimed in October 2001 that Saeed Sheikh transferred $100,000 dollars to Mohammed Atta before 9/11 on Ahmed's orders. India also says the FBI has confirmed the charge. A few weeks later the Afghan Northern Alliance made the same charge. Reportedly the USA was behind the removal of Ahmed, as well as Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan (Saeed's superior) and Lt. Gen. Muzaffer Usmani of the ISI, who allegedly opposed Pakistani support for the US attack on the Taliban. Ahmed has been silent on the allegations. Outside of Pakistan and India these charges have been mostly ignored by the media, though the WSJ mentioned it October 10, 2001. These charges could have been concocted by India or planted by anti-Pakistan factions of the US government, but they fit in with the pattern of Pakistani involvement in terrorism, including against Americans.
September 4-11 Ahmed was in Washington, his second after an April 4, 2000 visit. He was received at the Pentagon and the National Security Council and met with then CIA Director George Tenet, State Department officials, unidentified officials of the Bush Administration, and US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Mark Grossman. On the morning of 9/11 Ahmed was meeting with Democrat Bob Graham and Republican Porter Goss, now head of the CIA, who controlled the joint Congressional investigation into 9/11, which referred to Pakistan very little. The News of Pakistan noted that such trips to Washington by the ISI often came before major changes in Pakistan, such as Musharraf's military overthrow of the government in 1999.
The White House evidently does not want this information to be circulated. At a May 16, 2002 press conference, Condolezza Rice was asked if she was aware of Ahmed's visit, why he was here, and if he met with any Administration officials. The question also mentioned the money that was sent from Pakistan on the 10th, though it did not link Ahmed to this). The Federal News Service recorded the full question; the White House transcript took out most of the question: "Dr. Rice, are you aware of the reports at the time that (inaudible) was in Washington on the 11th…? (noted by Michel Chossudovsky and quoted in Griffin's O&C). Inside Politics on CNN and others used the White House transcript.
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