After being alerted by the CIA that top al-Qaeda leaders plan to meet in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the local security service, Malaysia’s Special Branch, monitors the operatives there (see January 5-8, 2000). The surveillance begins with the arrival of Khalid Almihdhar from Dubai on January 5, when he is met at the airport by a militant named Hikmat Shakir Ahmad (see January 12, 2000). [US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 144 
; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 502] A video recording is made (see January 5, 2000), photographs are taken (see (January 5-8, 2000)), and, when the attendees visit an internet café, the hard drives of the computers they use are searched (see January 7, 2000 or Shortly After). All this information is passed to the CIA (see January 5-9, 2000). However, it will later be reported that, despite the heavy surveillance, no audio recordings are made of what the attendees actually talk about. [Ottawa Citizen, 9/17/2001; Observer, 10/7/2001; New Yorker, 1/14/2002; CNN, 3/14/2002; Newsweek, 6/2/2002; Stern, 8/13/2003; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/29/2003] Apparently, Malaysian officials are not informed what to look for, and focus more on monitoring the local Malaysian and Indonesian hosts who serve as drivers than the visitors attending the summit. [Associated Press, 9/20/2002]
Before June 21, 2004: Iraqi Officer Turns out Not to Be Involved in 9/11
After a search of Iraqi paramilitary records indicates a man named Hikmat Shakir Ahmad was a lieutenant colonel in Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen, there is speculation that he is the same person as Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, an alleged Iraqi al-Qaeda operative who met one of the 9/11 hijackers during an al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000), and was captured and inexplicably released after 9/11 (see September 17, 2001). The claim that the two men are the same person is used to bolster the theory that Saddam Hussein was in some way connected to 9/11, but turns out not to be true, as the two of them are found to be in different places at one time, in September 2001. [Knight Ridder, 6/12/2004; Washington Post, 6/22/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 502]
