Al-Qaeda operative Luai Sakra apparently begins working as an informant for the CIA, Syrian intelligence, and Turkish intelligence. Sakra, a young Syrian whose parents were Turkish, attended the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan in 1997. He developed a bond with Abu Zubaida, the al-Qaeda leader who was logistics manager for the camp. Zubaida will later be captured and interrogated by the CIA and will reportedly confirm a link with Sakra. Zubaida tasked Sakra with building up an al-Qaeda network in Turkey. In 1999, the Syrian government began hunting him for his role in a revolt in a Lebanon refugee camp. [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 8/24/2005] The Turkish newspaper Zaman will report shortly after his capture in 2005, “Sakra has been sought by the secret services since 2000.” The CIA interrogated him twice in 2000. “Following the interrogation, the CIA offered him employment. He also received a large sum of money by the CIA. However the CIA eventually lost contact with him. Following this development, in 2000 the CIA passed intelligence about Sakra through a classified notice to Turkey, calling for the Turkish (intelligence) to capture him. [They] caught Sakra in Turkey and interrogated him.” [Zaman, 8/14/2005] Sakra was then apparently let go again. He will then move Germany and assist some of the 9/11 hijackers (see September 2000-July 24, 2001), then reveal details about the 9/11 attacks to Syrian intelligence the day before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001). He also will later claim to have trained some 9/11 hijackers in Turkey starting in late 1999 (see Late 1999-2000). In 2007, former CIA Director George Tenet will write in his book “At the Center of the Storm” that “a source we were jointly running with a Middle Eastern country went to see his foreign handler and basically told him something big was about to go down.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 160] This is very likely a reference to Sakra, since no one else comes close to matching the description of telling a Middle Eastern government about the 9/11 attacks one day in advance, not to mention working as an informant for the CIA at the same time. Tenet’s revelation strongly supports the notion that Sakra in fact accepted the CIA’s offers in 2000 and had been working with the CIA and other intelligence agencies at least through 9/11.
2000: Radical London Cleric and Informer Gives Followers OK for Martyrdom Operations
During a question and answer session after a speaking engagement in Blackburn, London-based radical imam Abu Hamza al-Masri, an informer for the British authorities (see Early 1997), tells his followers that suicide bombings are okay. A young man in the audience asks if it is permissible to blow oneself up in the cause of the jihad. Abu Hamza replies: “It is not called suicide, it is called shahid operation. It is not called suicide, this is called Shahada, martyring, because if the only way to hurt the enemies of Islam except by taking your life for that then it is allowed.” He adds: “If he is a person who actually wants to go to paradise, if he’s sincere about the beautiful women of paradise which one day, insha’Allah, he will go to paradise and she will tell him ‘I used to watch you‘… This religion quenches this thirst with the blood of martyrs. This religion fires the people with the blood of its sons and if it wasn’t for those minority few, the weak in their armoury, strong in their blood and their faith, without them the world wouldn’t have shook.” [O’Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 58]
2000: Pakistani Nuclear Scientists Use Charity Front to Help Taliban and Al-Qaeda
Two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists create a charity to help the Taliban. The scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudiri Abdul Majeed, had both retired the year before after long and distinguished careers, and had both become radical Islamists. They set up a charity, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), purporting to conduct relief work in Afghanistan, including helping to guide the Taliban on scientific matters. A number of pro-Taliban Pakistani generals and business leaders are on the board of directors, including Hamid Gul, a former director of the ISI. But not long after setting up an office in Kabul, the two scientists meet with Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, and discuss weapons development. During a later visit, Mahmood provides one of bin Laden’s associates with information on how to construct a nuclear weapon. [Frantz and Collins, 2007, pp. 264-265; Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 310-311] The two scientists will have a more extensive meeting with bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in August 2001, and will discuss how al-Qaeda can make a radioactive weapon (see Mid-August 2001). Shortly before 9/11, the CIA will learn of this meeting (see Shortly Before September 11, 2001), and also learn that UTN offered to sell a nuclear weapon to Libya, but the CIA will take no effective action against the group (see Shortly Before September 11, 2001). In late 2001, the Wall Street Journal will report that “One Pakistani military analyst said it was inconceivable that a nuclear scientist would travel to Afghanistan without getting clearance from Pakistani officials and being debriefed each time. Pakistan maintains a strict watch on many of its nuclear scientists, using a special arm of the Army’s general headquarters to monitor them even after retirement.” Furthermore, a former ISI colonel says the ISI “was always aware of UTN’s activities and had encouraged Dr. Mahmoud’s Afghanistan trips. He said the ISI learned last year that Dr. Mahmoud had recently discussed nuclear matters with Mr. bin Laden, and Dr. Mahmoud agreed not to do so again.” [Wall Street Journal, 12/24/2001] The US will finally freeze UTN’s assets in December 2001 (see Early October-December 2001).
2000: German Intelligence Stops Monitoring Atta’s Apartment
German investigators are monitoring Said Bahaji, a member of the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell, for his ties to Mamoun Darkazanli. They had been monitoring a Marienstrasse address where Bahaji had been living. But Bahaji moved out after his 1999 wedding (see October 9, 1999) to live down the street with his new wife. A request to continue monitoring the Marienstrasse address is denied in 2000 for lack of evidence. Bahaji had lived at that address with Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi and other members of the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell. Although Bahaji, Atta, and Alshehhi all moved out by mid-2000, other associates like Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Zakariya Essabar, and Abdelghani Mzoudi moved in. Atta’s name stayed on the lease until early 2001. [New York Times, 6/20/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 495]
2000: Attempted Flight Simulator Purchase Hints at Pilot Training
At some point during this year, an FBI internal memo states that a Middle Eastern nation has been trying to purchase a flight simulator in violation of US restrictions. The FBI refuses to disclose the date or details of this memo. [Los Angeles Times, 5/30/2002]
2000: Risk Management Software Determines that the Pentagon Is a Likely Terrorist Target
A software system commissioned by the Department of Defense determines that the Pentagon is vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The software, called Site Profiler, is being developed by Digital Sandbox, a company based in Reston, Virginia. [Guardian, 3/20/2003; Devlin, 2008, pp. 150; Pourret, Naim, and Marcot, 2008, pp. 253] Work on it began in response to the bombings of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in June 1996 (see June 25, 1996), and the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). [Digital Sandbox, Inc., 2000 
; Jha and Keele, 2012, pp. 40 ] Site Profiler is designed to provide site commanders with tools to assess terrorism risks, so they can develop appropriate countermeasures. It works by combining different data sources so as to draw inferences about the risk of terrorism. At some unspecified time in 2000, its developers hold sessions for expert review of the software. In these sessions, various experts suggest hypothetical threat scenarios. These scenarios are analyzed and the results are then presented to the experts. Due to time constraints, the initial evaluation focuses on scenarios the experts consider exceptional. One scenario that is evaluated involves a terrorist attack on the Pentagon using a mortar shot from the Potomac River. This scenario, the software’s developers will later write, is “intended to represent an exceptional case to stretch the limits of the model, rather than as a realistic scenario that might reasonably be expected to occur.” All the same, the results of the evaluation indicate “that the Pentagon [is] vulnerable to terrorist attack.” “In other words,” popular science writer Keith Devlin will comment, “the Pentagon was a prime terrorist target.” Devlin will write: “As we learned to our horror just a few months later, the Pentagon was one of the sites hit in the September 11 attack on the United States. Unfortunately, though understandably, neither the military command nor the US government had taken seriously Site Profiler’s prediction that the Pentagon was in danger from a terrorist attack.” Site Profiler will be delivered to all US military installations around the world in May 2001. [Devlin, 2008, pp. 150-151; Pourret, Naim, and Marcot, 2008, pp. 253]
2000: Head of Milan Al-Qaeda Cell Under Investigation in Hamburg, Germany, by This Time
Abderazek Mahdjoub, an Algerian living in Hamburg, Germany, attends the Al-Quds mosque, and has ties to some of the 9/11 hijackers. According to a senior German intelligence official, Mahdjoub is under observation by German domestic intelligence since at least this year. However, he is also connected to the al-Qaeda cell in Milan and in fact is believed to be the head of that cell. There is considerable evidence that the Milan cell has foreknowledge of the 9/11 plot. The cell is under heavy surveillance by Italian intelligence before 9/11 (see August 12, 2000)
(see January 24, 2001). But apparently the connection between the Milan and Hamburg cells through Mahdjoub is not made. He is also tied to Mohamed Daki, another alleged member of the Milan cell periodically living in Hamburg before 9/11 (see December 1997-November 1998). He apparently will continue to be a major organizer after 9/11, and the Italian and German governments will fail to share information about him. He is suspected of leading European recruitment of those who want to fight the US in Iraq. In late 2003, he will finally be arrested trying to cross the border into Iraq. He is put in German custody. [New York Times, 11/29/2003; New York Times, 3/22/2004]
2000: German Intelligence Issues Report on Al-Qaeda Connections in Germany
The BKA, the German counterpart to the FBI, prepares an extensive report on al-Qaeda’s connections in Germany. The BKA warns that “Unknown structures” are preparing to stage attacks abroad. However, the German federal prosecutor’s office rejects a proposed follow-up investigation. One of the persons named in the BKA report supposedly had contacts with the Hamburg terror cell. [Berliner Zeitung (Berlin), 9/24/2001]
2000: FBI Repeatedly Tells Clinton that Al-Qaeda Is Unable to Attack Inside US
In the wake of disrupting Ahmed Ressam’s millennium bomb plot at the end of 1999 and arresting his cohorts (see December 14, 1999)
(see December 15-31, 1999), US intelligence remains concerned that al-Qaeda sleeper cells remain in the US (see March 10, 2000). However, Clinton’s National Security Adviser Sandy Berger later claims that the FBI still repeatedly assures the Clinton White House that al-Qaeda lacks the ability to launch a domestic strike. [New York Times, 9/22/2002] He says, “Until the very end of our time in office, the view we received from the [FBI] was that al-Qaeda had limited capacity to operate in the US and any presence here was under surveillance.” No analysis is done before 9/11 to investigate just how big that presence might be. [Washington Post, 9/20/2002]
2000: CIA Stops Reviewing NSA Transcripts after Short Period of Time, Allegedly due to ‘Resource Constraints’
The CIA sends an officer from its Counterterrorist Center (CTC) to the NSA to review raw transcripts of intercepted communications between terrorists. However, the officer is only there for a “brief period” and is subsequently withdrawn and not replaced, damaging the CIA’s ability to exploit the information gleaned from the intercepts. The CIA only previously received summaries of intercepted calls, not the transcripts themselves, and had been arguing for years that it needed the actual transcripts to better understand the material (see February 1996-May 1998, December 1996, After December 1996, After December 1996, and Late August 1998). After the single officer leaves the NSA, which intercepts calls between the US-based 9/11 hijackers and an al-Qaeda communications hub in Yemen around this time (see Early 2000-Summer 2001), the reason the CIA gives for not replacing him is “resource constraints.” In 2005, the CIA’s Office of Inspector General will regard this failure as so serious that it will recommend an accountability board be convened to review the performance of the CTC managers responsible, and will suggest that officers should have been detailed to the NSA “on a consistent, full-time basis.” [Central Intelligence Agency, 6/2005, pp. xxiii ] The CIA and NSA are obtaining information about people in the US from phone companies to support “black ops” at this time (see After July 11, 1997).
