Garrett Wilson is a burly ex-US Army Ranger and military police officer at a naval base in Philadelphia who also runs his own security business. He is also a trusted FBI informant, helping to monitor militant black Muslims who come to him for paramilitary training and to buy surplus military equipment. On October 3, 1992, Wilson gets a call from Abdul Wali Zindani, head of the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn. Al-Kifah is a charity front linked to both al-Qaeda and the CIA (see 1986-1993). Zindani wants Wilson to help train and supply an elite group of about 10 men. Wilson then speaks to Abu Ubaidah Yahya, security chief for Al-Kifah, and Yahya further explains that they are especially interested in hostage rescue training. Wilson contacts his FBI handlers John Liguori and Tommy Corrigan, who are intrigued. They are aware that friends of El Sayyid Nosair have been plotting to break Nosair from prison and worry the hostage rescue training could be related to that, since Nosair has been closely linked to Al-Kifah. They tell Wilson to remain in contact with the people at Al-Kifah and see what develops. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 81-83]
January 15, 1993: FBI Informant Connects Plotters to ‘Blind Sheikh’
Garrett Wilson, a paramilitary trainer and gun seller working as an FBI informant, had made an agreement to give weapons training to a group of radical militants, but the FBI canceled the plan at the last minute after FBI superior Carson Dunbar worried the FBI could be training future terrorists. Wilson had made the arrangement with Clement Rodney Hampton-El and Abu Ubaidah Yahya, both of whom are connected to the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, which is linked to al-Qaeda and the CIA (see 1986-1993). But while the training has been canceled, Wilson’s cover as an informant has not been blown yet and his FBI handlers realize that Wilson would still have to give Hampton-El some equipment he’d bought for him. His FBI handlers Tommy Corrigan and John Liguori proposes that Wilson meet Hampton-El so the FBI can monitor the meeting and see where the trail leads. This time, they avoid Dunbar and get permission from a different supervisor, Neil Herman. Wilson goes to meet Hampton-El at a New Jersey hotel on January 15, 1993. Hampton-El isn’t there, but Yahya is, along with two others that Wilson does not know. Wilson hands off the equipment (weapons and military manuals) and quickly leaves, and then the FBI tails the others as they leave. Yahya returns in one car to the Al-Kifah office, where he is the security chief. The others go in another car to the apartment where the Blind Shiekh, Shiekh Omar Abdul-Rahman, lives. The FBI quickly determines the other two men at the meeting are Abdo Mohammed Haggag, Abdul-Rahman’s speechwriter, and Siddig Siddig Ali, Abdul-Rahman’s Sudanese translator. Corrigan, Liguori, and other FBI agents are stunned by the connections to Abdul-Rahman, who is a well-known public figure. But they will only be allowed to follow up for several days before the surveillance operation is canceled. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 87-90]
2:30 p.m. September 11, 2001: New York FBI Agent Recognizes the Name of a Hijacker during a Conference Call with FBI Headquarters
A number of FBI agents in New York are told the names of some suspected hijackers during a conference call with FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, and one of the agents, Steve Bongardt, is enraged when he recognizes one of these men, Khalid Almihdhar, as someone the FBI has been investigating. Most agents from the FBI’s New York office have assembled at a temporary field office at 26th Street and the West Side Highway (see After 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). But members of the FBI’s I-49 squad, which is focused on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s central command, have returned to their office at 290 Broadway. Three of them now participate in a conference call with FBI headquarters. Along with Bongardt, Kenneth Maxwell, the agent in charge of counterterrorism in New York, and John Liguori, a supervisor at the New York office, are on the call. Those at headquarters who are on it include Michael Rolince, head of the FBI’s international terrorism operations section, supervisor Rod Middleton, and analyst Dina Corsi. Maxwell begins the discussion, asking: “What do we know? Do we recognize any of the hijacker names?” Corsi says they have some names of suspected hijackers and starts reading these out. When she mentions Almihdhar, Bongardt interrupts her, asking: “Khalid Almihdhar? The same one you told us about? He’s on the list?” [Graff, 2011, pp. 313; Soufan, 2011, pp. 290-291] “This is the same Almihdhar we’ve been talking about for three months!” he yells angrily. [Washington Post, 9/21/2002] “Steve, we did everything by the book,” Middleton explains. “I hope that makes you feel better; tens of thousands are dead!” Bongardt retorts. Maxwell then tries to calm his colleague down. He presses the mute button on the phone and tells Bongardt: “Now is not the time for this. There will be a time, but not now.” [Graff, 2011, pp. 313; Soufan, 2011, pp. 290-291] Sometime tonight, Bongardt will submit a request to the FBI information center. “Within hours,” he will later recall, the center gets back to him after finding Almihdhar’s address in San Diego, California, simply through searching “public resources.” [US Congress. Senate. Committee on Intelligence, 9/20/2002]
