The Washington Post writes, “With little fanfare, [President Clinton] has begun to articulate a new national security doctrine in which terrorists and other ‘enemies of the nation-state’ are coming to occupy the position once filled by a monolithic communist superpower.” In his January 2000 State of the Union address, President Clinton predicts that terrorists and organized criminals will pose “the major security threat” to the US in coming decades. However, some claim that a “preoccupation with bin Laden has caused errors in judgment.” National Security Adviser Sandy Berger counters that the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks on US soil is “a reality, not a perception.… We would be irresponsible if we did not take this seriously.” Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke predicts that the US’s new enemies “will come after our weakness, our Achilles heel, which is largely here in the United States” (see April 2, 2000). [Washington Post, 4/2/2000]
April 2, 2000: Counterterrorism ‘Tsar’ Clarke Wants Aggressive Strategy against Terrorism; Says Our ‘Achilles Heel’ Is ‘Here in the United States’
Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke warns of the danger posed by Osama bin Laden and of the risk of a terrorist attack within the United States, and argues for an aggressive anti-terrorism strategy. His views are reported by the Washington Post, which calls him “one of the least known but most controversial members of [President] Clinton’s national security team,” who has “played a key role both in defining the new post-Cold War security threats to the United States and coming up with a response.” The Post says the central idea behind Clarke’s thinking is that “a new breed of global terrorist—embodied by bin Laden—has developed the ruthlessness and resources to carry its war to American soil.” These terrorists, Clarke says, “will come after our weakness, our Achilles heel, which is largely here in the United States.” Clarke “compares the current threat of global terrorism with the situation faced by Western democracies in the period leading up to World War II, when appeasement carried the day.” He is critical of those who are skeptical about the danger of a chemical or biological terrorist attack, saying: “The notion that this is an analytical problem and one can quantify the threat is naive.… We don’t know how many bio labs there are out there, how many tons of chemical agents. Frankly, it will only take one.” Clarke wants aggressive action to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans. He says: “We should have a very low barrier in terms of acting when there is a threat of weapons of mass destruction being used against American citizens. We should not have a barrier of evidence that can be used in a court of law.” Referring to bin Laden, he adds: “It’s not enough to be in a cat-and-mouse game, warning about his plots. If we keep that up, we will someday fail. We need to seriously think about doing more. Our goal should be to so erode his network of organizations that they no longer pose a serious threat.” [Washington Post, 4/2/2000]
April 4, 2000: 9/11 Hijacker Alhazmi Looks Good in First US Flying Lesson
Future 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi takes his first flying lesson in the US. In contrast to a lesson elsewhere a short time later, where the instructor describes him as “dumb” (see May 5 and 10, 2000), he does quite well. The lesson is at the National Air College in San Diego, in a four-seater plane with instructor Arnaud Petit. During the hour-long flight, Alhazmi proves to be surprisingly adept, and can almost take off and land on his own. Alhazmi is courteous and acts like a businessman. He wants a license within a month and does not seem fazed when Petit says it will cost $4,000. However, his English is not good enough to start flight training. Petit tells him to improve it and come back in a month, but he never returns. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 271-2; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 517-8] Alhazmi will say that his flight training continues in the winter (see (December 2000-January 2001)).
April 4, 2000: ISI Director Visits Washington and Is Told to Give Warning to Taliban
ISI Director and “leading Taliban supporter” Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed visits Washington. He meets officials at the CIA and the White House. In a message meant for both Pakistan and the Taliban, US officials tell him that al-Qaeda has killed Americans and “people who support those people will be treated as our enemies.” [Washington Post, 12/19/2001; Coll, 2004, pp. 508-510] US Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering bluntly tells Mahmood, “You are in bed with those who threaten us.” [Rashid, 2008, pp. 409] The US threatens to support the Northern Alliance, who are still engaged in a civil war with the Taliban. A short time later, Mahmood goes to Afghanistan and delivers this message to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. However, no actual US action, military or otherwise, is taken against either the Taliban or Pakistan. Author Steve Coll will later note that these US threats were just bluffs since the Clinton administration was not seriously considering a change of policy. [Washington Post, 12/19/2001; Coll, 2004, pp. 508-510]
April 7, 2000: Al-Zawahiri’s Brother Arrested and Rendered to Egypt; Reveals Secrets of Islamic Jihad
Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, is arrested at Dubai airport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While much less known than his brother, Mohammed quietly served an important role as Ayman’s deputy in Islamic Jihad, and as the group’s military commander (see 1993). He apparently disagreed with the increasing unification between Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, and quit in 1998 over that issue. [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 108] He is arrested in the UAE and then flown to Egypt as a part of the CIA’s rendition program (see Summer 1995). A senior former CIA officer will later confirm US involvement in the operation. [Grey, 2007, pp. 246, 299] Mohammed had been sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt the year before. [New Yorker, 9/9/2002] But his execution is not carried out, and he is said to reveal what he knows about Islamic Jihad. In 2007 it will be reported that his sentence is likely to be lessened in return for agreeing to renounce violence. [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 108; Associated Press, 4/20/2007] Note: there is a dispute about when he was arrested. Some sources indicate it was in the spring of 1999. [Grey, 2007, pp. 246; Associated Press, 4/20/2007] Others indicate it was a year later. [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 108; New Yorker, 9/9/2002]
April 16-18, 2000: 9/11 Hijackers Receive First Wire Transfer from UAE; Almihdhar Suspected of Being Saudi Intelligence Operative
According to the 9/11 Commission, al-Qaeda financial facilitator Ali Abdul Aziz Ali uses the name “Mr. Ali” to make the first wire transfer from abroad to the 9/11 hijackers in the US. Five thousand dollars is wired from the Wall Street Exchange Center in Dubai to an account of an acquaintance of hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar in San Diego. The Exchange Center makes a copy of Ali’s work ID and notes his cell phone number and work address, which is helpful to the FBI after 9/11. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 220; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 134 
] Ali, who is a nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, is also accused of wiring hijacker Marwan Alshehhi $115,000 (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000). Although in a 2007 US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay he will admit sending this amount to Alshehhi, he will deny sending $5,000 to Alhazmi, saying that his personal information was distributed to “thousands of people from different parts of the world,” so it could have been used by somebody else. Some reports indicate that Saeed Sheikh may also have wired the hijackers some money this year (see Summer 2000). [US Department of Defense, 4/12/2007, pp. 17 ] Although the hijackers have at least one US bank account (see February 4, 2000), they tell the administrator of their local mosque, Adel Rafeea, that they do not have one and ask him to allow the money to be paid into his account. It is unclear why they do this. The administrator will come forward after 9/11 and say that Alhazmi and Almihdhar initially described themselves as Saudi government clerks and needed his help to find an English school. After declining Alhazmi’s request for a loan, he permits his account to be used, but then distances himself from them because he is suspicious of the transfer: it came from the United Arab Emirates, not Saudi Arabia, where Alhazmi said it would come from, and the sender is only identified as “Ali.” This causes him to worry that Almihdhar might be an intelligence agent of the Saudi government. [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 517; McDermott, 2005, pp. 191]
April 19, 2000: Reports Indicate Israeli Organized Crime Units Dominate Ecstasy Distribution
USA Today reports that “Israeli crime groups… dominate distribution” of the drug Ecstasy. [USA Today, 4/19/2000] The DEA also states that most of the Ecstasy sold in the US is “controlled by organized crime figures in Western Europe, Russia, and Israel.” [United Press International, 10/25/2001] According to DEA documents, the Israeli “art student spy ring”
“has been linked to several ongoing DEA [Ecstasy] investigations in Florida, California, Texas, and New York now being closely coordinated by DEA headquarters.” [Insight, 3/11/2002]
Before April 21, 2000: British Intelligence Learns of Apparent Link between Top London-Based Militant and Bin Laden
Reda Hassaine, an informer for the British security service MI5, learns that a top London-based operative known as Abu Walid is to travel to Afghanistan. He also hears rumors that Abu Walid is to meet Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders and will not return to London after the meeting. The mission is so important that Abu Qatada, a leading imam who reportedly sits on al-Qaeda’s fatwa committee (see June 1996-1997) and also informs for MI5 (see June 1996-February 1997), is to hold a special prayer session to bless Abu Walid before he leaves. Hassaine attends the prayer session, but the militants realize he is an informant and attempt to murder him (see April 21, 2000). [O’Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 148] French intelligence had previously considered assassinating Abu Walid in London, but he will be reported to be in Afghanistan after the US invasion and will die in Chechnya in 2004 (see 1997-1998).
April 21, 2000: Militants Unmask British Intelligence Informer at Special Prayer Session, He Escapes
At the instructions of the British intelligence service MI5, informer Reda Hassaine goes to a meeting at the Four Feathers community center. The meeting is being held so that Abu Qatada, an al-Qaeda spiritual leader and also MI5 informer (see June 1996-February 1997), can bless an emissary named Abu Walid that London-based Islamists are sending to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. MI5 knows about the meeting thanks to information passed on by Hassaine (see Before April 21, 2000). Hassaine arrives early, but finds Abu Qatada is already there, and the group is saying prayers for someone preparing to lay down their life for God, presumably Abu Walid. As the prayers end, Hassaine realizes some of the other men are looking at him strangely, and that they must have discovered he is a mole. The men attack him as he leaves, but he manages to get out of the building and they chase him down the street. He evades them and calls his MI5 handler, who tells him, “Go home and whatever you do don’t involve the police.” He then realizes that there were men at the meeting from numerous Islamist groupings throughout London, and that if he goes back to any place where extremists gather, he might not get away again. This ends his career as an informer. He occasionally runs into people who must know of the incident, and they make threatening gestures towards him. [O’Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 148-149]
After April 21, 2000: Informer Thinks British Authorities Do Not ‘Give a Sh*t’ Islamist Killers Live in London
After deciding to end his career as an informant against radical Islamists in London (see April 21, 2000), Reda Hassaine reflects bitterly on his experience of the British security services, MI5 and the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch: “These guys I was risking my life for—they hadn’t arrested anybody, they didn’t do a proper job. All the work I had done, all the risks I took didn’t seem to amount to anything. All this killing was taking place abroad, but the British didn’t give a sh*t that the killers were here in London. As long as nothing happened in Britain, then everything was alright. Abu Hamza [al-Masri, another MI5 informer (see Early 1997)] was left to do whatever he liked, to brainwash, to recruit, and send people off to the training camps. I was telling the British this all the time. ‘This group is going to Afghanistan,’ I would say. ‘They’re leaving on Friday, they have tickets to fly to Pakistan.’ And the only reply I got was, ‘There’s nothing we can do about it.’”
‘Harmless Clown’? – Hassaine will add: “I wasn’t surprised. When I began to work with MI5 I already knew from the French that they would do nothing, that they weren’t interested in what was happening in London, the threat didn’t register. They told me that they thought Abu Hamza was a ‘harmless clown,’ but I felt obliged to carry on with the work. [Note: a group closely associate with Abu Hamza murdered some British citizens and others in Yemen in 1998 (see December 28-29, 1998).] I had started this thing, I wanted to pursue it. I later learned that Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada were both talking to MI5 and Special Branch too. The British must have thought they had these guys under control, that they were collaborating with them.”
‘A Factory for Making Terrorists’ – Hassaine will continue: “Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Abu Hamza was busily recruiting hundreds of people, sending them off to Afghanistan, from where they were returning unnoticed and undetected to do whatever they like. Abu Hamza had this great big mosque where these people could hide, pick up a new identity, get money and support, and receive the blessing of the imam for their actions. Seven days a week that place was producing recruits for the jihad. It was a factory for making terrorists.” [O’Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 150-151]
