Winds of Change.NET: Special Analysis: One Cell At A Time

September 11, 2003

Special Analysis: One Cell At A Time

by Dan Darling at September 11, 2003 12:45 AM

The 19 hijackers of the September 11 attacks are dead, along with the 3,000 innocent people they murdered on that fateful day two years ago. While the FBI believes that the hijackers did not act with the support of a vast conspiracy inside the United States (thereby providing support to Joe Katzman's contention that al-Qaeda is weak in the continental USA), we know that they did not act alone.

After 9/11, President Bush vowed that whether we bring our enemies to justice or justice to our enemies that justice would be done. In this analysis, I take a look at the key enablers and co-conspirators for September 11. Where are they now, after 2 years of the War on Terror?

The Continental US

To date, Zacarias Moussaoui is the only person inside the US who has been charged with participating in the conspiracy to carry out September 11. According to the testimony of captured al-Qaeda leader Ramzi Binalshibh, Moussaoui was sent to the United States as a back-up pilot after Binalshibh was denied visa entry into the country. He is currently on trial and his legal antics could in of themselves take up an entire analysis on their own right.

At least one other al-Qaeda leader inside the United States had probable beforehand knowledge of the attacks. Ali Saleh al-Marri, a Qatari native who arrived in the United States on September 10 an alumni of the infamous al-Farooq camp and proficient in the use of chemical weapons, may also have had knowledge of attacks. According to the June 23 issue of Newsweek, al-Marri was al-Qaeda's point man in the United States for launching attacks post-9/11. He is currently classified as an enemy combatant by the United States.

Other potential co-conspirators include Omar al-Bayyoumi and Osama Basnan, two Saudi nationals provided assistance to two of the hijackers while in San Diego. Basnan was recently convicted of visa fraud and is awaiting deportation, while al-Bayyoumi, an apparent Saudi agent, is currently at large in Saudi Arabia.

The Hamburg Cell

If Mohammed Atta was the mastermind behind the September 11, Ramzi Binalshibh was unquestionably the brain. Binalshibh, who was promoted to a member of al-Qaeda's military committee in the aftermath of the attacks and quickly developed his own following among the network's younger recruits, was captured in Karachi on September 11 of 2002.

Mounir Motassadeq, Abdelghani Mzoudi, Zakariya Essabar and Said Bahajiare other members of Binalshibh's Hamburg cell who provided support for the hijackers. Motassadeq was put on trial in Germany and sentenced to 15 years in jail, the maximum penalty under German law for accessory to murder. The trial of Mzoudi has recently begun in Germany, though the accused al-Qaeda operative has thus far refused to testify at his own trial. Unfortunately, both Essabar and Bahaji have both managed to elude the dragnet thus far and presumably gone underground for the time being.

The Middle Management

Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a Syrian German, was al-Qaeda's top recruiter in Hamburg and the man who brought Mohammed Atta and his colleagues into the terrorist network. Fleeing Afghanistan after the Taliban fell, Zammar arrived in Morocco with his superior Abu Zubair al-Haili, where he was captured by Moroccan authorities and extradited to Syria. From the word on the street, I'd say Guantanamo looks pretty good to him right about now.

Other key players in the in al-Qaeda command structure that carried out the September 11 attacks are Karim Mehdi and Christian Ganczarski. Mehdi had been in contact with the Hamburg cell prior to the attacks, while Ganczarski was in contact with bin Laden as well as having masterminded by Djerba synagogue bombing, apparently in coordination with Binalshibh from his hideout in Karachi.

While there are a number of other links between the dozens if not hundreds of al-Qaeda sleeper cells unearthed in Europe since the attacks, particularly in the now-infamous Milan cell, where local al-Qaeda commander Abdelkader Mahmoud Es Sayed turned his mosque into a logistics center for the terrorist organization. Es Sayed is believed to have returned to Afghanistan, where he may have been killed during the course of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The unquestionable hub of al-Qaeda's operations in continental Europe, however, appears to lie in Spain. There Abu Dahdah and his deputy Yusuf Galan communicated directly with Mohammed Atef in Afghanistan. From 1994 to 2001, Abu Dahdah ran recruitment logistics operations for al-Qaeda across Europe, sending dozens of jihadis to training camps in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Indonesia and acted as the direct contact between al-Qaeda's central leadership in Afghanistan and its European operatives, including Mohammed Atta and members of the Hamburg cell. Abu Dahdah and his minions in Madrid and Granada were arrested by Spanish authorities in November 2001.

The Iraq Connection?

Before anyone blows a gasket, I don't plan on spending much time discussing Salman Pak and the like. However, if Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani did meet with Mohammed Atta (as the Czech ambassador to the UN seemed to think of February 2003), one can rest assured that he is now in US custody in the aftermath of the war in Iraq.

One other point is worth mentioning, though it hasn't gotten nearly as much attention in the media. Abu Dahdah's deputy Yusuf Galan went to a party at the Iraqi Embassy in Madrid before the 9/11 attacks. Now that fact doesn't sound all that significant until one takes into account that Galan (whose real name is Luise Jose Galan Gonzalez) had a well-established reputation as a firebrand Islamist with known sympathies towards Herri Batasuna, the political wing of the Basque terrorist group ETA. Hardly the kind of person that you'd think a diplomat of a respected nation would want to be associated with, let alone invite to his parties.

The Central Leadership

Several of al-Qaeda's highest-ranking leaders attended a terrorist summit in Kuala Lumpur in which both the destruction of the U.S.S. Cole as well as the preliminary planning for September 11. In attendance were a veritable rogue's gallery of the world's most wanted including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hanbali, and Tawfiq Attash Khallad.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, was captured by the CIA and Pakistani authorities on March 1, 2003. His capture served as one of the worst single blows to al-Qaeda and may have even prompted bin Laden to call a meeting of his surviving lieutenants the following month to assess the situation. As a founding member of al-Qaeda, Mohammed has been involved in every major terrorist plot over the course of the last 13 years.

Tawfiq Attash Khallad is another high-ranking al-Qaeda leader who served as the controller for the affiliated Pakistani jihadi groups from May 2002 onwards and likely had a role in everything ranging from assassination plots against General Musharraf to a series of terrorist attacks over the summer of 2002 that nearly brought India and Pakistan to the verge of full-scale war. Khallad was arrested in Karachi in April 2003 along with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew, Ammar al-Baluchi, who helped to fund the September 11 attacks.

As for Hanbali, you can read more about him in greater detail in a previous special analysis by yours truly here.

In summary, in the two years since the 9/11 attacks the US and its allies have systematically disrupted the cell that ordered the attack, a solid chunk of al-Qaeda's European infrastructure and middle management, as well as all of the key leaders involved in planning the attacks. Not a bad start for only two years into the war if past conflicts are anything to judge by.

JK UPDATE: Congratulations to Dan for becoming part of the Wall St. Journal's Sept. 11, 2003 Best of the Web feature. Somebody in the intelligence community please give Dan a job already. Our 9/11 Anniversary Special Features today also include Dan's global report for the War on Terror, and a compilation of the best 9/11 related background and articles we've found over the past 2 years.

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Comments

#1 from Ray at 12:26 am on Sep 11, 2003

You left out Abu Zubaydah

#2 from Dan Darling at 1:31 am on Sep 11, 2003

Abu Zubaydah was al-Qaeda logistics and operations coordinator, not one of the actual masterminds of the attacks to my understanding. I didn't want to list every member of the organization's first-tier leadership as that would be a whole separate analysis in of itself.

#3 from daniel winters at 3:44 am on Sep 12, 2003

Being in Japan, i may miss a lot of news, but 2 nites ago the govt. channel NHK showed a purported list of all Al-Qaeda operatives (in the Taleban?). They said getting this list was a scoop. Does anyone know anything more about this?

#4 from Dan Darling at 2:36 pm on Sep 12, 2003

I doubt it was a list of all al-Qaeda operatives, that would be quite a lengthy piece indeed. I'll look around and see if I can find anything from my Japanese contacts.

#5 from Nell Lancaster at 7:42 pm on Sep 12, 2003

Zammar arrived in Morocco with his superior Abu Zubair al-Haili, where he was captured by Moroccan authorities and extradited to Syria. From the word on the street, I'd say Guantanamo looks pretty good to him right about now.

This 'cute', insouciant acceptance of torture-at-one-remove -- just the kind of thing the Wall St. Journal's 'Best of the Web' was looking for?

#6 from Dan Darling at 2:29 am on Sep 13, 2003

Well Neil, let me pose the question to you: would you rather be in a Syrian political prison or Guantanamo Bay?

I wasn't intending to be "cute," as you put it. But I think it does pose an interesting reminder to all those who feel that what takes place at Guantanamo Bay is one step removed from the Nazi death camps what real torture at the hands of a government that cares nothing for human rights looks like.

As far as being insouciant goes, Zammar was responsible for recruiting members of a terrorist organization that killed 3,000 people, 90% of whom had nothing to do with the course of US foreign policy simply for the purpose of making a political point. The young men he recruited with his promises of adventure, battle, and a glorious afterlife he very probably sent to their deaths on the battlefields of Afghanistan or Chechnya or some other God-forsaken place. So while I tend to dislike the methodology used by the Syrian government against Zammar, I don't feel any particular reason to especially care for his well-being. If the situation were reversed, I expect he'd probably feel the same.

If you want to call anything insouciant, be sure to count the overwhelming concern of so many people for utterly amoral individuals over the lives of God knows how many innocent people that they've sought to destroy. But then again, there are just as many folks here in the US who believe that John Ashcroft, a member of an administration that they can vote out of office, is more of a threat to their life and liberty than individuals like Zammar.

#7 from Nell Lancaster at 10:24 pm on Sep 14, 2003

The Syrians are torturing Zammar on behalf of this country. I oppose torture everywhere and under all conditions, especially that conducted in any sense "in my name."

I'm not concerned for Mr. Zammar "over" the lives of victims of terror he helped bring about. I am concerned for this country, its principles, and its freedoms, which too many Americans seem willing to dispense with.

P.S. My name is Nell, I'm a woman.

#8 from RobJack at 11:32 pm on Sep 14, 2003

Nell,
Your concern for the (spiritual?) well being of the United States is admirable. In times past however, and I believe in the future, whenever Americans are threatened, rough men stand ready to do evil upon our enemies.

Your delicate sensibilities are better suited to taking care of the home front. You should leave the guarding of this country - and the treatment of our enemies, to Americans with the strength to set the rules of civilized society aside and perform whatever is neccessary to ensure our existence and prosperity.

#9 from Joe Katzman at 4:29 am on Sep 15, 2003

We've had this debate before on Winds of Change.NET. I think we'll be having it more or less forever.

Arguments against torture are not merely moral - some are also practical, arguing that in terms of raw effectiveness there are better options. National Review ran a great article that pushed both the moral and the practical angles, for instance, and they aren't exactly a bunch of leftist wimps.

What Nell is arguing here goes beyond the question of torture. She is implicitly arguing that the USA should not hand anyone over to a country known or strongly believed to use torture. That argument, I contend, has much less weight to it. In practice, a similar line of reasoning has allowed al-Qaeda bigwig Qatada to remain safe and fairly active in Britain, rather than be extradited to Jordan for justice. This approach seems to create moral situations at least as monstrous as those it seeks to avoid, and in a war that doesn't cut it.

RE: Zammar, the Syrians wanted him and the USA handed him over. The Syrians will not be gentle, but since he decided to declare war on us too (not excactly intelligent behaviour under the circumstances) then that's his problem.

While I disagree with RobJack's argument above, therefore... (Tap, tap) Nope. Sympathy meter must still be busted.

#10 from Igor Schrenk at 7:05 pm on Sep 15, 2003

Nell is one of those people who tend to think that anything bad in the world has "Made in the U.S.A." stamped on it. Even done by a country, like Syria, which is hardly a U.S. friend.

Did we hand him over? No.

Are the Syrians doing anything "in our name" or on our behalf? No.

No fair person could think that. So of course the Blame America First, Last, and Always crowd lays responsibility for what is done by dictatorships at our feet if it coincidentally is done to someone we oppose for other reasons. But they tend to defend those dictatorships when we confront them - as we have been doing with Syria.

One question for Nell, though: when the UN put Syria, which tortures (and murders) prisoners on their Human Rights Commission and on the Security Council, what did you say then? Anything? What does that say about the UN to you?

#11 from Joe Katzman at 3:29 pm on Sep 16, 2003

I thought the USA had indeed handed Zammar over - anyone out there who can confirm or deny?

Valid and good questions re: the U.N., Igor. That said, Nell's position here re: torture is not a reliable indicator of her politics. So the "blame America" accusation falls kind of flat.

#12 from Joe Jackson at 7:22 pm on Sep 17, 2003

Nell is, like most lefy demos, a complete dumbass. Why would Syria, a terrorist exporting country, do anything for us? Are you stupid or something.

I personally believe George is being too nice, too careful, and too politically correct.

It's time we enter the northwest provinces, kill a few thousand tent-dwelling tribesmen, and find the goddamn dynamic duo of death and get rid of them once and for all.

They wanted this war, they asked for it, now let's give it to them.

#13 from Lurker@mailinator.com at 8:44 pm on Sep 17, 2003

I'm with Joe. We know nothing about Nell's politics or her political position, and insulting her is bad form all around.

Setting aside the issue of torture for a moment, let's generalize her point... it's, at best, of dubious morallity to have another country do for us which we ourselves consider imoral and illegal.

It's like being involved in a bank robbery gone bad where someone gets killed and then claiming we're innocent because we didn't pull the trigger. The judge an't gonna buy it!

The fact is, if we turned the guy over to Syria with an agreement to share the info they extract, and it can reasonably be assumed he was going to be tortured, then we are as responsible, even if it's only morally responsible, as if we did it ourselves. I don't see how it could be otherwise....

So, maybe we should think about this some more before giving the ol' wink, wink, nudge, nudge...