Twenty-three suspected al-Qaeda operatives break out of a high-security prison in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a. Escapees include Jamal al-Badawi, wanted for a role in the bombing of the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000), and Jaber Elbaneh, a US citizen believed to be linked to the alleged al-Qaeda sleeper cell in Lackawanna, New York (see April-August 2001). The men allegedly tunnel their way from the prison to the bathroom of a neighboring mosque. However, the New York Times will later comment: “[T]hat account is viewed with great skepticism, both in the United States and in Yemen. Many in Yemen say the escape could not have taken place without assistance, whether from corrupt guards or through a higher-level plan.” [New York Times, 3/1/2008] The prison is located in the basement of the Political Security Organization (PSO), Yemen’s equivalent of the FBI. Several days later, a cable sent from the US embassy in Yemen notes “the lack of obvious security measures on the streets,” and concludes, “One thing is certain: PSO insiders must have been involved.” Newsweek comments: “[P]rivately, US officials say the plotters must have had serious—possibly high-level—help at the Political [Security Organization].…. [T]he head of the PSO, Ali Mutahar al-Qamish, is said to be under suspicion, according to two US officials.” [Newsweek, 2/13/2006] Al-Badawi and nine others escaped a Yemeni prison in 2003 and then were recaptured one year later (see April 11, 2003-March 2004). Al-Badawi and Elbaneh turn themselves in to the Yemeni government in 2007 and then are freed (see October 17-29, 2007 and February 23, 2008).
February 6, 2006: Moussaoui Unsuccessfully Seeks Last Minute Deal
Zacarias Moussaoui meets FBI special agent James Fitzgerald in jail. Moussaoui tries to persuade Fitzgerald he is worth more to US intelligence alive than dead and offers information in return for being spared the death penalty. However, Fitzgerald demands full and complete co-operation, not only on what he knows about the plot in which he was involved, but also on everything he knows about al-Qaeda. They fail to reach an agreement. [Los Angeles Times, 3/29/2006]
February 9, 2006: President Bush Describes 2002 Al-Qaeda Plot in Apparent Effort to Deflect Criticism of NSA Wiretapping
During a speech defending his campaign against al-Qaeda, President Bush describes a previously obscure al-Qaeda plot to crash an airplane into the Library Tower (since renamed the US Bank tower) in Los Angeles in 2002 (see October 2001-February 2002). It is the tallest building on the West Coast of the US. The plot was first briefly mentioned in a Bush speech in October 2005 (see October 6, 2005), but Bush and his aides now provide new details. The plot was allegedly masterminded by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, but was foiled when the four Asians recruited for the plot were arrested in Asia. Bush’s speech on the plot comes on the same day as a Senate hearing into the NSA’s illegal domestic wiretapping program. The Washington Post comments, “several US intelligence officials played down the relative importance of the alleged plot and attributed the timing of Bush’s speech to politics. The officials… said there is deep disagreement within the intelligence community over the seriousness of the Library Tower scheme and whether it was ever much more than talk.” One intelligence official “attributed the [speech on the plot] to the administration’s desire to justify its efforts in the face of criticism of the domestic surveillance program, which has no connection to the incident.” [Washington Post, 2/10/2006] The New York Times will similarly comment, “Bush’s speech came as Republicans are intent on establishing their record on national security as the pre-eminent issue in the 2006 midterm elections, and when the president is facing questions from members of both parties about a secret eavesdropping program that he describes as pivotal to fighting terrorism.” [New York Times, 2/10/2006]
February 14, 2006: Congressman Says Mohamed Atta’s Name Appears 13 Times in Pre-9/11 Government Databases
Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA) says that he is in contact with people who are still able to do data mining on pre-9/11 data, and, in “those data runs that are now being done today, in spite of what DOD [Department of Defense] said, I have 13 hits on Mohamed Atta.” He also says that additional Able Danger material continues to be found in Pentagon files, and that in early February, a general was present as Able Danger was recovered from filing cabinets. This came from the early 2000 version of Able Danger that supposedly had all of its data destroyed by Erik Kleinsmith. Weldon also claims, “At least one additional witness has come forward who just retired from one of the intelligence agencies, who will also testify under oath that he was well aware of and identified Mohamed Atta’s both name and photo prior to 9/11 occurring.” The Defense Department claims to have performed recent data mining on pre-9/11 data and failed to find Mohamed Atta’s name. A Defense Department official also says one day after Weldon’s claims: “It is true that in the course of this more recent review, we have indeed unearthed additional documents related to Able Danger. These documents were found, I must say, with some considerable effort, only because they were filed and misfiled and in a place where they weren’t easily gotten to, not because they were being hidden.” [Associated Press, 2/14/2006; CNS News, 2/15/2006; US Congress, 2/15/2006]
February 15, 2006: US Terror Watch List Quadrupled in Size Since 2003
The US interagency National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) maintains a watch list of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects, a number that has more than quadrupled since the the list was created in 2003 by merging other watch lists together. NCTC officials estimate that, due to aliases, some 200,000 individuals are represented on the list. The main US watch list at the time of 9/11 had 60,000 names on it (see December 11, 1999). An administration official says, “The vast majority are non-US persons and do not live in the US.” However, officials refuse to state how many on the list are US citizens and how many names on the list were obtained through the controversial wiretapping program run by the National Security Agency (NSA). Civil liberties and privacy advocates claim that the scale of the list heightens their concerns that watch lists include the names of large numbers of innocent people. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that he cannot discuss specifics but says, “Information is collected, information is retained, and information disseminated in a way to protect the privacy interests of all Americans.” A September 2003 presidential directive instructs agencies to supply data for the list only about people who are “known or appropriately suspected to be… engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism.” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, says the scope of the NCTC list highlights the “false positive” problem, in which innocent people have been stopped from flying because their names are wrongly included or are similar to suspects’ names. “If there are that many people on the list, a lot of them probably shouldn’t be there. But how are they ever going to get off?” [Washington Post, 2/15/2006] Numerous problems with the list will be found in 2006 (see March 2006).
February 15, 2006: Second Congressional Hearing Held on Able Danger; Former Members Testify
A second open Congressional hearing on Able Danger is held. Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone testifies that an extensive review of Able Danger under his direction failed to locate the chart with Mohamed Atta’s picture and failed to find any other pre-9/11 references to Atta. Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA) repeatedly spars with Cambone, and says that since 9/11, “There’s been no investigation! There’s been no analysis [of Able Danger] by the 9/11 commission or anyone else.” Three members of the Able Danger team, Eric Kleinsmith, Anthony Shaffer, and James D. Smith, testify in public. All three of them say that the 9/11 attacks might have been prevented if law-enforcement agencies had acted on the information about al-Qaeda they discovered. The three of them had been prevented from testifying in the first public hearings on Able Danger in September 2005 (see September 21, 2005). [Sacramento Bee, 2/15/2006] Captain Scott Phillpott, the former head of Able Danger, apparently joins other former team members in closed testimony. [McClatchy News Service, 2/15/2006] The Congressional committee asked 9/11 Commission staff member Dietrich Snell to testify. But Snell’s boss, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, said that Snell would not be available. Weldon has said he wants to ask Snell under oath why Snell did not inform any of the 9/11 Commissioners what he had learned about Able Danger. [US Congress, 2/15/2006]
March 2006: Numerous Problems with No-Fly List Come to Light
Several problems with the US international no-fly list, which is designed to prevent suspected terrorists from flying to the US, are found by investigative reporters Joe and Susan Trento. The list has grown rapidly since 2003 (see February 15, 2006), and was found to be inaccurate in 2005 (see June 14, 2005). 
The list contains the names of fourteen 9/11 hijackers, who are thought to be dead (see March 2006). The list deliberately omits the names of some known terrorists, apparently so that intelligence agencies can track them as they fly (see May 2006). The information on the list makes it difficult to distinguish between people with similar names. For example, FBI special agent John E. Lewis is often stopped, as a suspected terrorist has a similar name to his. Several people called Robert Johnson are stopped regularly. The list includes Francois Genoud, who had ties to both Islamic extremists and the Nazis and committed suicide in the mid-1990s at the age of 81. The list only includes two people involved in the A. Q. Khan nuclear smuggling ring; dozens of their associates are omitted. Numerous anti-Castro Cubans with records of suspicious and criminal activity are missing from the list. However, left-wing Bolivian president Evo Morales is on the list.
A high-level official at United Airlines calls the list “a joke.” A Transportation Security Administration official says: “No-fly doesn’t protect anyone. It is every government agency’s cover-your-ass list of names. Many of the really bad guys are never put on the list because the intelligence people think the airlines are not trustworthy. That makes the incomplete list we give the airlines next to worthless.” [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 188-221; CBS News, 6/10/2006] The list will be reported to have over half a million names by June 2007 (see June 13, 2007).
March 2006: Ali Mohamed Still Not Sentenced
Ali Mohamed, the double agent caught in 1998, still has not been sentenced. In 2000, he pled guilty to involvement in the 1998 African embassy bombings (see October 20, 2000) and his sentencing date had originally been set for July 2001 (see July 2001-December 2001). Linda Sanchez, Mohamed’s wife, says in an interview at this time, “He’s still not sentenced yet, and without him being sentenced I really can’t say much. He can’t talk to anybody. Nobody can get to him.” The US government has “got Ali pretty secretive.… It’s like he just kind of vanished [into] thin air.” [Lance, 2006, pp. 23-24] There is no evidence he has been sentenced since.
March 2006: Wanted War Criminal Becomes Ruler of Kosovo; Charges against Him Dropped
Agim Ceku is elected prime minister of Kosovo. Kosovo is still part of Serbia but is veering towards independence. Ceku was reportedly responsible for many atrocities while a Croatian general in 1993-1995 (see 1993-1995). He then became a top leader of the al-Qaeda-linked militant group, the Kosovo Liberation Army. Interpol removes Ceku from its list of wanted persons simply because of his new status as prime minister. [Associated Press, 3/24/2006]
March 2006: Apparently Dead 9/11 Hijackers Still on No-Fly List
When journalists Joe and Susan Trento obtain a copy of the US international no-fly list, which the Transportation Security Administration uses to prevent known terrorists from flying to the US and other countries, they find that 14 of the alleged 9/11 hijackers are still on it. They are: Satam Al Suqami, Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari, Hamza Alghamdi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Ahmed Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri, Majed Moqed, Hani Hanjour, Salem Alhazmi, Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Alnami, and Ahmed Alhaznawi. Shortly after 9/11, it was reported that some of the hijackers were still alive (see September 16-23, 2001) and this may be the reason for the apparent error, although the set of hijackers reported to be still alive and the set of 14 hijackers still on the no-fly list only partially overlap. [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 189-192] The no-fly list also contains manifold problems and at least one other dead terrorist is on it (see March 2006).
