David Cohen, head of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, wants to test the idea of having a “virtual station,” which is a station based at CIA headquarters and focusing on one target. He chooses Michael Scheuer to run it. Scheuer is running the Islamic Extremist Branch of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center at the time and had suggested creating a station to focus just on bin Laden. The new unit, commonly called Alec Station, begins operations in February 1996 (see February 1996). The 9/11 Commission will later comment that Scheuer had already “noticed a recent stream of reports about bin Laden and something called al-Qaeda.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 109] It has been widely reported that US intelligence was unaware of the term al-Qaeda until after defector Jamal al-Fadl revealed it later in 1996 (see June 1996-April 1997). But Billy Waugh, an independent contractor hired by the CIA to spy on bin Laden and others in Sudan in 1991 to 1992, will later claim that the CIA was aware of the term al-Qaeda back then (see February 1991- July 1992). And double agent Ali Mohamed revealed the term to the FBI in 1993 (see May 1993). The term will first be used by the media in August 1996 (see August 14, 1996).
January 24, 2002: CIA Veteran David Cohen Joins NYPD
The New York Police Department (NYPD) appoints CIA veteran David Cohen to the newly-created post of deputy commissioner of intelligence. [New York City, 1/24/2002] Cohen headed the CIA’s Directorate of Operations (DO) from 1995 to 1997. After leaving the agency, he joined AIG, the world’s largest insurance company, in November 2000. [National Underwriter Property and Casualty, 1/15/2001] He also apparently headed the CIA’s office in New York, which was located in WTC7 before its collapse, at some point. The press release announcing his hiring says that “he also served as the senior CIA official in the New York area,” but provides no additional details. “Asked if he ever worked in the CIA’s office in the World Trade Center, he laughed and said, ‘You’re going to have to ask the CIA where their offices were,’” reports the New York Times. [New York Times, 1/25/2002] NYPD also created a new post of deputy commissioner of counterterrorism, which will be filled by Michael Sheehan from 2003 to 2006. Cohen and Sheehan’s appointments are part of a huge expansion of NYPD’s intelligence-gathering and counterterrorism efforts, which will be the subject of numerous press reports. [New York Times, 1/15/2004; New Yorker, 7/25/2005]
