Philip Zelikow, formerly the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, will serve as a senior adviser for Condoleezza Rice in her new position as secretary of state. His position, counselor of the United States Department of State, is considered equal to undersecretary of state. [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 2/28/2005] Rice says: “Philip and I have worked together for years. I value his counsel and expertise. I appreciate his willingness to take on this assignment.” According to author Philip Shenon, Zelikow tells his new colleagues at the State Department that it is “the sort of job he had always wanted.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 418] 9/11 victims’ relatives groups had demanded Zelikow’s resignation from the 9/11 Commission, claiming conflict of interest, including being too close to Rice (see March 21, 2004).
Spring 2005: Taliban’s Top Drug Kingpin Turns Himself In to US
Haji Bashir Noorzai, reputedly Afghanistan’s biggest drug kingpin with ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, had been arrested and then released by the US in late 2001 (see Late 2001), and then ignored when he wanted to make a deal with US in 2004 (see Autumn 2004). In spring 2005, the US again contacts him and offers a deal. Author James Risen explains, “The Americans asked Noorzai to come to the United States to negotiate a deal, and to the astonishment of nearly everyone involved in the case, he agreed. Noorzai flew on a regular commercial flight to New York, where he was met by federal agents. The Bush administration was so startled that he had actually agreed to come to the United States that it was not quite sure what to do with him.” Secret talks are held in New York City, resulting in Noorzai being indicted in April 2005. “By the summer of 2005, Noorzai was in jail and was talking, but questions remained about whether the Bush administration really wanted to hear what he had to say, particularly about the involvement of powerful Afghans and Pakistanis in the heroin trade.” [BBC, 4/26/2005; Risen, 2006, pp. 152-162]
Spring 2005-Early 2007: Radical London Imam Bakri Admits He Has Been Informant for British Intelligence
“A few months” before the 7/7 London bombings (see July 7, 2005), journalist Ron Suskind interviews radical London imam Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed. Suskind had recently heard from a British intelligence official that Bakri “had helped [British domestic intelligence agency] MI5 on several of its investigations,” in Suskind’s words, and he asks Bakri about this. According to Suskind, Bakri looks flustered and says, “I’m upset you know this.” Asked why he helped the British, he replies: “Because I like it here. My family’s here. I like the health benefits.” In early 2007, Suskind calls Bakri on the phone. After the 7/7 bombings, Bakri moved from London to Lebanon (see August 6, 2005), but by the time Suskind reaches him, Bakri has moved again to Tripoli, Libya. Bakri admits that he misses Britain and his role there. He says that the British government misses him too, “whether they admit it or not.” He adds: “We were able to control the Muslim youth.… The radical preacher that allows a venting of a point of view is preventing violence. Now, many of us are gone or in jail, and we’ve been replaced by radical jihadis, who take the youth underground. You don’t see them until the day they vent with the bombs.” Suskind will later comment: “Bakri enjoyed his notoriety and was willing to pay for it with information he passed to the police.… It’s a fabric of subtle interlocking needs: the [British authorities] need be in a backchannel conversation with someone working the steam valve of Muslim anger; Bakri needs health insurance.” Bakri’s role as an informant will not be made public until Suskind mentions it in a book published in August 2008. Suskind will not make clear when Bakri’s collaboration with MI5 began or ended, or even if he was still collaborating when they spoke in early 2005. [Suskind, 2008, pp. 200-202] In 2002, Roland Jacquard, a French counterterrorism expert and government adviser, said that “every al-Qaeda operative recently arrested or identified in Europe had come into contact with Bakri at some time or other.” [Time, 5/27/2002]
March 2005: Scotland Yard Official Predicts Britons Will Blow Themselves Up on London Subway Using Backpack Bombs
By March 2005, senior officers in Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch conclude that Britain is likely to be attacked by “home-grown” terrorists. One senior officer predicts that an attack could be mounted by Britons with bombs in backpacks, who would blow themselves up on the London subway. This is exactly what will occur in July (see July 7, 2005). However, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 sharply disagrees. In June, an assessment made by a group of top counterterrorism officials will conclude that no group has the intention or capability of attacking within Britain (see Mid-June 2005). [Guardian, 5/13/2006]
March 3, 2005: State Department Says Afghanistan Is on Verge of Becoming a Narcotics State
A State Department report on world drug production suggests that, as the Associated Press puts it, “Afghanistan has been unable to contain opium poppy production and is on the verge of becoming a narcotics state.” The area in Afghanistan devoted to poppy cultivation (the raw material for opium and heroin) in 2004 more than tripled the figure for 2003. The report suggests this situation “represents an enormous threat to world stability.” [Associated Press, 3/4/2005] Drug eradication efforts have been almost completely ineffectual. For instance, in May 2005 it will be reported that Afghanistan’s US-trained Central Poppy Eradication Force has destroyed less than 250 acres, well short of its original goal of 37,000 acres. [New York Times, 5/22/2005] The drug economy now accounts for between a third and half of the country’s economic output. The World Bank estimates that opium cultivation can generate at least 12 times as much income as alternative crops. [Slate, 5/18/2005]
March 3, 2005: Important Alleged Al-Qaeda-Linked Imam Acquitted in Indonesia after US Fails to Provide Access to Prisoners
Abu Bakar Bashir, allegedly the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, al-Qaeda’s main affiliate in Southeast Asia, is acquitted of most charges in a trial in Indonesia. Bashir, a well-known radical imam, had been accused of involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings (see October 12, 2002) and 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing (see August 5, 2003). However, he is only convicted of one charge of criminal conspiracy, because the judges say he knew the bombers and his words may have encouraged them. Bashir is sentenced to 30 months in prison, but is released after serving only one year due to good behavior. In late 2006, the Indonesian supreme court will void his one conviction altogther. [New York Times, 3/4/2005; Associated Press, 12/26/2006] The New York Times will later report: “Legal observers here said the case against Mr. Bashir was weak. The strongest evidence linking him to the Bali terrorist attacks was never heard by the five-judge panel because of a decision by the Bush administration that the Indonesian government would not be allowed to interview two senior al-Qaeda operatives, Riudan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, and Omar al-Faruq.” The CIA has been holding Hambali and al-Faruq in secret prisons since 2003 and 2002 respectively (see August 12, 2003 and June 5, 2002). [New York Times, 6/14/2006] One Indonesian counterterrorism official says: “We need[ed] Hambali very much. We [fought] to get access to him, but we have failed.” An unnamed Australian official complains that the US was hypocritical in pressing Indonesia to prosecute Bashir and then doing nothing to help convict him. [New York Times, 3/4/2005] Al-Faruq allegedly told the CIA that Bashir had provided logistical and financial support for several terrorist attacks, but he was also interrogated by techniques considered close to torture. The US allowed Indonesian officials to directly interrogate al-Faruq in 2002, but then prohibited any later access to him (see June 5, 2002). And shortly after Hambali’s arrest in 2003, President Bush promised to allow Hambali to be tried in Indonesia, but then failed to even give Indonesians any access to him (see October 23, 2003).
March 8, 2005: 9/11 Commission Investigator Frustrates German Efforts to Convict Hijacker Associate El Motassadeq
Dietrich Snell, the 9/11 Commission’s lead investigator into the origins and role of the Hamburg cell in the 9/11 plot, testifies in the German retrial of Mounir El Motassadeq. Snell tells a panel of judges that the 9/11 Commission concluded the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell members such as Mohamed Atta did not develop the idea of the 9/11 plot on their own, but were recruited by bin Laden during a visit to Afghanistan in late 1999. He claims, “Ultimately, we did not arrive at the conclusion that there was solid evidence of any contact” between the Hamburg cell members and al-Qaeda leaders about the plot before the Hamburg group’s trip to Afghanistan. These findings contradict the prosecutor’s case against El Motassadeq and also run counter to media accounts suggesting the Hamburg cell was involved in the plot before that time. According to German law, prosecutors must prove that important elements of the conspiracy took place in Germany in order to get a conviction. Snell largely fails to explain how the Commission came to that conclusion, saying the sources remain classified. [Washington Post, 3/9/2005]
March 11-August 11, 2005: London Imam Abu Qatada Released and Arrested Again
By 2005, al-Qaeda-linked imam Abu Qatada has been held in a high-security prison in Britain for three years without being charged. On March 11, 2005, he is released after a British court rules that the law under which he was being held allowing indefinite detention without trial is a struck down as a violation of human rights. A government official calls Abu Qatada a “truly dangerous individual,” but says there is no choice but to release him. Abu Qatada is given stringent bail conditions, including a daily curfew, electronic tagging, and a prohibition on preaching or leading prayers. On August 11, he is arrested again. British authorities announce they are planning to extradite him to Jordan, where he was sentenced to life in prison in absentia in 2000 for a role in the planned millennium bombings there. [London Times, 3/11/2005; Fox News, 8/11/2005] As of 2008, Abu Qatada is still in a British prison, appealing the extradition order.
March 15, 2005: Conspirators Convicted of Plotting to Bomb US Embassy in Paris
Six Algerians are convicted in France of trying to blow up the US embassy in Paris. The ringleader is a top Islamist militant named Djamel Beghal, who was arrested in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) based on a US tip-off in 2001 (see July 24 or 28, 2001). Beghal is sentenced to ten years in prison, his associate Kamel Daoudi gets nine years, and the four others get between one and six. The sentences are for criminal association relating to a terrorist enterprise, although the alleged would-be suicide bomber, Nizar Trabelsi, is not charged or tried in France, and few details of the plot are offered in court. Trabelsi was arrested in Belgium shortly after 9/11 (see September 13, 2001), and is in prison there on other charges (see September 30, 2003). Beghal and the others say they are innocent, and Beghal alleges that the confession based on which the arrests were made was tortured out of him in the UAE. [Washington Post, 3/16/2005]
March 18-19, 2005: Brothers with Alleged Long-time Al-Qaeda Links Arrested in Britain and Spain
On March 18, 2005, Mouhannad Almallah is arrested in Madrid, Spain. The next day, his brother Moutaz Almallah is arrested in Slough, near London. Both are accused of involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings (see 7:37-7:42 a.m., March 11, 2004). [Independent, 3/20/2005] The arrests come less than two weeks after it was widely reported that in 2004 police had found a sketch of the New York Grand Central Station terminal in an apartment where Mouhannad was living, leading to suspicions that he was involved in a planned attack on New York. [El Mundo (Madrid), 3/2/2005] It appears that Moutaz was under surveillance in Spain for al-Qaeda links since 1995, and Mouhannad since 1998 (see November 1995). Mouhannad was arrested shortly after the Madrid bombings, but then released (see March 16, 2004). Moutaz will be extradited to Spain in March 2007, but he has yet to be put on trial. [Reuters, 3/8/2007] In 2007, Mouhannad will be sentenced to 12 years in prison for a role in the Madrid bombings (see October 31, 2007).
