May 15, 2001: CIA Hides Al-Qaeda Malaysia Summit Information from the FBI

Tom Wilshire, a former deputy chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit on attachment to the FBI, sends a request to CIA headquarters for the surveillance photos of the January 2000 al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia (see January 5-8, 2000). Three days later, Wilshire will explain the reason for his interest in an e-mail to a CIA analyst, writing, “I’m interested because Khalid Almihdhar’s two companions also were couriers of a sort, who traveled between [the Far East] and Los Angeles at the same time ([H]azmi and [S]alah).” Hazmi refers to future 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi and Salah Said is the alias al-Qaeda leader Khallad bin Attash traveled under during the summit. Apparently, Wilshire will receive the photos. Toward the end of May, a CIA analyst will contact a specialist working at FBI headquarters about the photographs. The CIA wants the FBI analyst to review the photographs and determine if a person who had carried money to Southeast Asia for bin Attash in January 2000 could be identified. The CIA will fail to tell the FBI analyst anything about Almihdhar or Alhazmi. Around the same time, the CIA analyst will receive an e-mail mentioning Alhazmi’s travel to the US. These two analysts will travel to New York the next month and again the CIA analyst will fail to divulge what he knows. [US Congress, 7/24/2003 ; US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 283 ]