US Attorney Debra Yang holds a news conference in Los Angeles to report that four arrested gas station robbers have been indicted for plotting terror attacks. The group was led by Kevin James, a US national and founder of Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, a radical Islamic organization that identifies the US government and Jews as major targets. His co-conspirators are Levar Washington and Gregory Patterson, both US nationals, and Hammad Riaz Samana, a permanent US resident originally from Pakistan. [US Department of Justice, 8/31/2005] Washington was recruited by James while incarcerated at New Folsom Prison. Upon his release, he recruited Samana and Patterson at his mosque, Jamat-E-Masijidul Islam in Los Angeles. [New York Sun, 9/6/2005] Washington had pledged loyalty to James “until death by martyrdom” and sought to recruit men with bomb-making expertise. [ABC News, 9/13/2005] Yang sas that the four had purchased firearms and sought instructions for constructing bombs. She says that they were prepared to carry out attacks when two of them were arrested for robbing a gas station, allegedly to fund the operation. The indictment includes the eleven gas station robberies the men have allegedly carried out. [Reuters, 8/31/2005] The indictment alleges that the men conducted surveillance of military facilities, the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles, El-Al airlines, and synagogues. They planned to strike on the dates of Jewish holidays to maximize casualties. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez says that the men engaged in “identification of target locations, procurement of weapons, firearms and physical training, recruitment efforts, and financing operations through armed robberies.” [US Department of Justice, 8/31/2005] Police uncovered evidence of the plot when investigating the gas station robberies. [Council on Foreign Relations, 2/22/2007] Patterson dropped a mobile telephone during one robbery. Information from the phone triggered an FBI-led investigation that involved more than 25 agencies and 500 investigators. Police staked out Patterson and Washington, and arrested them after they robbed a Chevron station on July 5. A search of Washington’s apartment turned up bulletproof vests, knives, jihad literature, and lists of potential targets. There was further evidence indicating that Patterson was in the process of acquiring an AR-15 assault rifle. [New York Sun, 9/6/2005] Yang says that the “evidence in this case indicates that the conspirators were on the verge of launching their attack,” adding that the arrest has exposed “a chilling plot based on one man’s interpretation of Islam.” [Reuters, 8/31/2005] Many of the court documents are sealed, but it is known that the trial date was “continued” from October 24, 2006 to August 27, 2007. All four men plead not guilty. The order moving the trial date indicates that the evidence includes 40,000 pages of documents, “numerous” audio and visual tapes, and 14 computer hard drives. [MILNET, 9/30/2006] On December 14, 2007, James and Washington will plead guilty to domestic terrorism charges. There is no evidence presented during the trial that indicates the men had any contact with any extremist organizations, nor were they accused of this. The two will admit that they conspired “to levy war against (the US government) through terrorism.” James faces up to 20 years in federal prison and Washington could be sentenced to up to 25 years. Patterson is also expected to plead guilty to terrorism charges. Samana is found unfit to stand trial and is receiving psychiatric care at a federal prison. [MSNBC, 12/14/2007]
Autumn 2005 or Before: Fears Over CIA Evidence Cause FBI to Build Cases against Guantanamo Detainees
The FBI begins to build cases against high value detainees held by the US in Guantanamo Bay, due to Defense Department fears that evidence obtained from the detainees by the CIA will be inadmissible or too controversial to present at their upcoming war crimes tribunals. The investigation, which involves up to 300 agents in a “Guantanamo task force,” runs for at least two years and FBI agents travel widely to collect evidence. According to former officials and legal experts, “The [FBI] process is an embarrassment for the Bush administration, which for years held the men incommunicado overseas and allowed the CIA to use coercive means to extract information from them that would not be admissible in a US court of law—and might not be allowed in their military commissions….” In fact, the techniques used to extract the confessions even cause some CIA officials to question whether they are believable, much less sustainable in court, particularly as CIA officers are not trained to obtain evidence that can be used in such a setting. In addition, if the information is used, this may focus the trials on the actions of the CIA and not the accused. The detainees will be designated enemy combatants in 2007 in preparation for military commissions (see March 9-April 28, 2007 and August 9, 2007), but this process will be questioned by a judge (see June 4, 2007). The Los Angeles Times will also comment, “The FBI’s efforts appear in part to be a hedge in case the commissions are ruled unconstitutional or never occur, or the US military detention center at Guantanamo Bay is closed. Under those scenarios, authorities would have to free the detainees, transfer them to military custody elsewhere, send them to another country, or have enough evidence gathered by law enforcement officials to charge them with terrorism in US federal courts.” [Los Angeles Times, 10/21/2007]
September-November 2005: Questions Raised over NIST’s Claims of Pre-Collapse Tilt of WTC Towers
Both towers of the World Trade Center tilted to one side before beginning to fall on 9/11 (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). The National Institute of Standards and Technology, which investigated the collapses (see August 21, 2002), states that the South Tower, which was hit on its south side, tilted about 7-8 degrees to the east and 3-4 degrees to the south, and the North Tower, which was hit on its north side, tilted about 8 degrees to the south, before starting to fall. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 300, 308 
] However, these findings are criticized by Canadian scientist Frank Greening. After examining photo and video evidence, Greening says that the South Tower tilted by no more than two degrees and the North Tower by no more than three degrees before collapse initiation. Greening also says that the tilt angles NIST gives cannot correspond to the downward movement of the towers’ walls NIST claims before they started to fall, and points out that the tilt angles NIST uses are inconsistent throughout its reports. Though Greening agrees with NIST that the towers were destroyed by the plane impacts and fire damage, he concludes that its computer model is “highly inaccurate and therefore of no value in explaining the demise of the Twin Towers.” [Greening, 11/2005 ] Greening is a leading figure in the post-9/11 dispute over why the WTC collapsed and publishes a series of papers dealing with various aspects of the Twin Towers’ collapse. For example, a CBC documentary uses Greening for analysis of the WTC’s fall. [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 8/25/2005]
September 1, 2005: Lead 7/7 London Bomber Apparently Gives Last Testament in Al-Qaeda Video, Praises Bin Laden
The Al Jazeera satellite network broadcasts a video apparently featuring short speeches from Mohammad Sidique Khan, considered the lead suicide bomber in the 7/7 London bombings, and al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. The two do not appear together. The man resembling Khan praises “our beloved sheikh, Osama bin Laden.” He declares: “Until we feel security, you will be our target. Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.” The man resembling Al-Zawahiri does not explicitly take credit for the 7/7 bombings, but he speaks of “the blessed London battle, which came as a slap to the face of the tyrannical, crusader British arrogance.… Like its glorious predecessors in New York, Washington, and Madrid, this blessed battle has transferred the battle to the enemies’ land.” British Prime Minister Tony Blair has strenuously denied that the 7/7 bombings were inspired by British involvement in the Iraq war, but the man resembling al-Zawahiri refers to the “inferno of Iraq,” and says Blair is conducting a “crusader war against Islam.” There are no obvious visual signs of where the speeches were recorded. [New York Times, 9/2/2005] Remarkably, British counterterrorism officials continue to deny a direct al-Qaeda link to the 7/7 bombings and are not convinced by the video. One unnamed senior official says, “It leaves us in the same position.” A police source admits that the video “makes it a bit more likely al-Qaeda were directly involved.” The video is made by As-Sahab, the al-Qaeda media production company behind other al-Qaeda videos. [Guardian, 9/3/2005] Another 7/7 bomber will apparently appear in a similar video one year later (see July 6, 2006).
September 9, 2005: Beck Calls Katrina Victims ‘Scumbags,’ Confesses to ‘Hat[ing]’ Families of 9/11 Victims
Conservative radio host Glenn Beck, in a joint attack on the Hurricane Katrina survivors and the families of the 9/11 victims, calls Katrina survivors “scumbags” and says how much he “hates” the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. Beck, whose daily radio show is syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks (a subsidiary of Clear Channel, which also syndicates many other conservative talk show hosts) and is broadcast to a weekly audiience of some 3 million listeners, acknowledges that no one “in their right mind is going to say this out loud.” He then savages both groups of victims and survivors. Beck says: “Let me be real honest with you. I don’t think anybody on talk radio—I don’t think anybody in their right mind is going to say this out loud—but I wonder if I’m the only one that feels this way. Yesterday, when I saw the ATM cards being handed out, the $2,000 ATM cards, and they were being handed out at the Astrodome. And they actually had to close the Astrodome and seal it off for a while because there was a near-riot trying to get to these ATM cards. My first thought was, it’s not like they’re going to run out of the $2,000 ATM cards. You can wait! You know, stand in line.… When you are rioting for these tickets, or these ATM cards, the second thing that came to mind was—and this is horrible to say, and I wonder if I’m alone in this—you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9/11 victims’ families? Took me about a year. And I had such compassion for them, and I really wanted to help them, and I was behind, you know, ‘Let’s give them money, let’s get this started.’ All of this stuff. And I really didn’t—of the 3,000 victims’ families, I don’t hate all of them. Probably about 10 of them. And when I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I’m just like, ‘Oh shut up!’ I’m so sick of them because they’re always complaining. And we did our best for them. And, again, it’s only about 10. But the second thought I had when I saw these people and they had to shut down the Astrodome and lock it down, I thought: I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9/11 victims. These guys—you know it’s really sad. We’re not hearing anything about Mississippi. We’re not hearing anything about Alabama. We’re hearing about the victims in New Orleans. This is a 90,000-square-mile disaster site, New Orleans is 181 square miles. A hundred and—0.2 percent of the disaster area is New Orleans! And that’s all we’re hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we’re seeing on television are the scumbags—and again, it’s not all the people in New Orleans. Most of the people in New Orleans got out! It’s just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they’re getting all the attention. It’s exactly like the 9/11 victims’ families. There’s about 10 of them that are spoiling it for everybody.” [Media Matters, 9/9/2005]
September 10, 2005: Saeed Sheikh Alleged to Have Had Role in 7/7 London Bombings despite Being Imprisoned in Pakistan
In a Guardian op-ed, British MP and former cabinet minister Michael Meacher suggests that Saeed Sheikh, known for his alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks and the murder of reporter Daniel Pearl, may have played a role in the 7/7 London bombings despite being held in a high-security Pakistani prison since 2002. Meacher states that “reports from Pakistan suggest that Sheikh continues to be active from jail, keeping in touch with friends and followers in Britain.” He cites the India-based Observer Research Foundation, which argues that there are even “grounds to suspect that the [7/7 London bombings] were orchestrated by [Saeed] Sheikh from his jail in Pakistan.” [Guardian, 9/10/2005] While there have been no firm reports linking Sheikh to the 7/7 bombings, he did work with Pakistani militant leader Maulana Masood Azhar (in fact both were released in 1999 as part of a deal to end an airplane hijacking (see December 24-31, 1999)), and there are reports that two of the 7/7 bombers called Azhar and had dealings with others linked to Azhar’s militant group (see August 1, 2005).
September 13, 2005: Revised Version of 9/11’s Commission’s FAA Report Released; Some Material Still Blacked Out
A new version of a report by the 9/11 Commission on the FAA and 9/11, which was completed in August 2004, is publicly released. A heavily censored version of the same report came out in February 2005 (see February 10, 2005). Commission members complained that the deleted material included information crucial to understanding what went wrong on 9/11. The newly released version restores dozens of portions of the report, but numerous references to shortcomings in aviation security remain blacked out. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the former heads of the 9/11 Commission, state: “While we still believe that the entire document could be made available to the public without damaging national security, we welcome this step forward.” Commission officials say they were perplexed by the White House’s original attempts to black out material that they considered trivial or mundane.
[Associated Press, 9/13/2005; New York Times, 9/14/2005]
September 14, 2005: Former 9/11 Commission Members Dismiss Able Danger Evidence
Former members of the 9/11 Commission dismiss recent allegations regarding a secret military intelligence unit called Able Danger, which had been set up in 1999 to bring together information about al-Qaeda. Several former members of the unit have come forward claiming the program identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers more than a year before the attacks (see August 17, 2005; August 22-September 1, 2005). The 9/11 Commission has been criticized for not mentioning Able Danger in its final report. In response, its former chairman, Thomas Kean, claims there is no evidence that anyone in the government knew about Mohamed Atta before 9/11, and there are no documents that verify the claims made by former members of the unit. However, the Pentagon has recently confirmed that documents associated with Able Danger were destroyed in accordance with regulations about gathering intelligence on people inside the US. Another former commissioner, Slade Gorton, says, “Bluntly, it just didn’t happen and that’s the conclusion of all 10 of us.” But a spokesman for Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA), who helped bring to light the existence of the program, says that none of the commissioners met with anyone from Able Danger, “yet they choose to speak with some form of certainty without firsthand knowledge.” [Associated Press, 9/15/2005; Fox News, 9/16/2005] The commission’s claim that no one in the US knew about Mohamed Atta before 9/11 is further contradicted by reports stating that the CIA had been tracking him while he was still in Germany, early in 2000 (see January-May 2000). And soon after 9/11, Newsweek reported US officials stating that Atta “had been known as [an associate] of Islamic terrorists” well before 9/11. [Newsweek, 9/20/2001 ]
September 19, 2005: Able Danger Intelligence Officer Has Security Clearance Revoked
Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, an Army intelligence officer who worked closely with a military intelligence unit called Able Danger, has his security clearance revoked. [Government Executive, 9/21/2005; Times Herald (Norristown), 9/22/2005] Shaffer alleges that Able Danger identified Mohamed Atta and three other future 9/11 hijackers more than a year before the attacks (see August 17, 2005). Shaffer’s lawyer, Mark Zaid, states, “I specialize in security clearance cases.… Based on years of experience I can say categorically that the basis for the revocation was questionable at best.”
[US Congress, 9/21/2005] Shaffer is due to testify two days later in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee investigating Able Danger, though he is subsequently prohibited from doing so by the Defense Department (see September 21, 2005). His security clearance had been suspended 18 months previously (see March 2004).
September 19, 2005: US Freezes Assets of Al-Qadi Associate
The US freezes the assets of Abdul Latif Saleh, who is a citizen of both Jordan and Albania. Bin Laden allegedly gave Saleh $600,000 to create “extremist groups” in Albania, and Saleh is also said to be tied to the Islamic Jihad (which merged into al-Qaeda before 9/11). Saleh is also said to be associated with Saudi multimillionaire Yassin al-Qadi (see October 12, 2001). The Treasury Department claims, “Saleh and Qadi had entered into several business partnerships with one another, including a sugar importing business, a medical enterprise and a construction business. Saleh served as the general manager of all of Qadi’s businesses in Albania and reportedly holds 10 percent of the Qadi Group’s investments in Albania.” [Associated Press, 9/19/2005; US Department of the Treasury, 9/19/2005] In the middle of 2004, the Swiss government also froze bank accounts worth $20 million of an unnamed Saudi businessman who is the former president of the Muwafaq Foundation over alleged al-Qaeda ties (see June 25, 2004). Al-Qadi was the founder and main investor of Muwafaq (see 1995-1998). [New York Times, 6/25/2004]
