Egypt freezes the assets of dozens of top Muslim Brotherhood figures and then announces that 40 of them will stand trial in Egypt’s military court. The Associated Press notes this court is “known for its swift trials and no right of appeal.” Figures targeted include most of the top leaders of the Al Taqwa Bank in Switzerland, the Muslim Brotherhood bank banned by the US for its alleged ties to al-Qaeda. About five of those to be tried in absentia are tied to the bank, including bank directors Youssef Nada and Ghaleb Himmat. [Agence France-Presse, 1/24/2007; Associated Press, 2/6/2007; Ikhwanweb, 2/8/2007] The Muslim Brotherhood has been officially banned in Egypt for decades but it has generally been tolerated by the government. Muslim Brotherhood members became the largest opposition bloc in the Egyptian parliament after winning 88 of the 454 seats in the 2005 legislative elections by running as independents. [Associated Press, 2/6/2007]
January 26, 2007: CIA Chief’s Villa Seized over Kidnapped Imam Affair
Italian authorities investigating the kidnapping of radical imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar) seize half of a villa belonging to Robert Seldon Lady, a CIA substation chief involved in the abduction (see Noon February 17, 2003 and February 22-March 15, 2003). The half of the villa that belongs to Lady (the other half belongs to his wife) is to be held until the end of Lady’s trial for the kidnapping (see February 16, 2007). If Lady is convicted, it will be sold to pay for court costs and possibly damages. [Associated Press, 1/26/2007]
January 26, 2007: Interpol Puts Out Bulletin Regarding Bin Laden’s Brother-in-Law Khalifa
Interpol’s bureau in Washington, DC, sends a bulletin about bin Laden’s brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa to the FBI, the NSA, and the Department of Homeland Security, concerning an unnamed “project initiated to proactively target terrorism from captured terrorists.” The bulletin will later be released in heavily redacted form by the Intelwire.com website, and what else it says is unclear. Just four days later, Khalifa will be murdered in Madagascar in mysterious circumstances (see January 30, 2007). It is his first trip outside of Saudi Arabia since the 9/11 attacks. [Guardian, 3/2/2007]
January 28, 2007: Chief of CIA’s Bin Laden Unit on 9/11 Said to Be Son of ‘Controversial’ Former CIA Figure
Journalist Ken Silverstein writes a piece about a CIA officer who is being considered for the position of station chief in Baghdad (see January-February 2007). According to Silverstein, who uses the pseudonym “James,” the officer is “the son of a well-known and controversial figure who served at the agency during its early years.” Silverstein also mentions the officer’s time managing Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, problems with his management style (see June 1999), his closeness to former CIA Counterterrorist Center chief Cofer Black (see 1998 and After), his work as station chief in Kabul after 9/11 (see December 9, 2001), and his involvement in the rendition of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (see Shortly After December 19, 2001). [Harper’s, 1/28/2007] The officer, Richard Blee, will finally “out” himself in a joint statement issued with former CIA Director George Tenet and Black in August 2011 (see August 3, 2011).
January 30, 2007: Bin Laden’s Brother-in-Law Khalifa Murdered in Mysterious Circumstances
Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, brother-in-law and former best friend of Osama bin Laden, is killed in Madagascar. Khalifa’s family claims that a large group of armed men broke into his house and killed him as he slept. His computer and laptop is stolen. Khalifa was living in Saudi Arabia but traded precious stones and was staying at a mine that he owns. His family says they do not believe he had been killed by locals. There is considerable evidence Khalifa was involved in funding al-Qaeda-connected plots in the Philippines and Yemen in the 1990s (see December 16, 1994-February 1995, December 16, 1994-May 1995, and 1996-1997 and After). Since that time, Khalifa has steadfastly denied any involvement in terrorism and has criticized bin Laden. CNN reporter Nic Robertson asks, “Was he killed by bin Laden’s associates for speaking out against the al-Qaeda leader or, equally feasibly, by an international intelligence agency settling an old score?” Just one week earlier, a Philippine newspaper published a posthumous 2006 interview with Khaddafy Janjalani, former leader of Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim militant group in the southern Philippines. In the interview, Janjalani claimed Abu Sayyaf received $122,000 from Khalifa and bomber Ramzi Yousef in the mid-1990s (see Early 1991). [CNN, 1/31/2007; Reuters, 2/1/2007] And four days before his murder, Interpol put out a bulletin about him, notifying a number of US intelligence agencies (see January 26, 2007). [Guardian, 3/2/2007] His murderers have not been found or charged.
February 2007: Former CIA Agent: America ‘Less Safe Now from Terrorism… Than It Ever Was’
In his new book America at Night, author and former CIA agent Larry Kolb writes: “[O]ur government has spent trillions turning Iraq into the world’s largest terrorist training camp, while pursuing policies guaranteed to keep at least a billion people around the workd intensely pissed at us. Our military forces are so overstretched that, if any real threat emerges, we will risk being seen as a paper tiger. And in spite of all the blue ribbon panels and commissions, and the new layer of bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent to make us safe at home, America is less safe now from terrorism and cataclysm than it ever was.” [Kolb, 2007, pp. 225-226]
February 1, 2007: Bush Administration Opposes Bill Tying Military Aid to Pakistan with Pakistan Stopping Support for Taliban
The Bush administration is opposed to a bill in Congress that would link military aid for Pakistan to tackling the Taliban. The bill, which has passed the House of Representatives, calls for an end to military assistance to Pakistan unless it stops the Taliban from operating out of Pakistan. Administration officials say the bill would undermine the fostering of a closer relationship with Pakistan. [Reuters, 2/1/2007]
February 11, 2007: Kidnapped Imam Released in Egypt
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar) is released in Egypt. He was kidnapped by the CIA in Milan, Italy, in 2003 and taken to Egypt, where he was imprisoned. This sparked a confrontation between the CIA and Italian anti-terrorist authorities, who had been investigating him before he was kidnapped (see Noon February 17, 2003). Nasr, who filed an action for unlawful detention against Egypt’s Interior Ministry, is released in Alexandria after a State Security Court declares his detention “unfounded.” Nasr will apparently remain in Egypt and not return to Italy, where a warrant for his arrest was issued on terrorism counts (see April 2005). [Associated Press, 2/12/2007]
February 11, 2007: Al-Qaeda Hamburg Cell Member Zammar Is Given 12-Year Sentence in Syria
Mohammed Haydar Zammar, an alleged member of al-Qaeda’s Hamburg, Germany, cell with a few of the 9/11 hijackers, is given a 12-year prison sentence in Syria. It had been known that Zammar was arrested in late 2001 in Morocco and renditioned to Syria for likely torture and interrogation (see October 27-November 2001 and December 2001), but his exact location was not confirmed until a European Union official spotted him in Syrian custody in October 2006 (see October 2006). It has been reported that Zammar had extensive al-Qaeda connections and a probable role in the 9/11 plot, but he was not charged for any of that, and instead was accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. This group is banned in Syria, and membership in it is a crime that is punishable by death. The court initially sentences Zammar to life imprisonment but commutes his sentence to 12 years. Der Spiegel comments, “Zammar’s German citizenship and the fact that German diplomats were closely monitoring the trial may have gone some way toward saving him from the gallows.” [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 2/12/2007]
February 16, 2007: 35 Committed for Trial in Italy over Kidnapped Imam Affair
An Italian judge rules that there is enough evidence to try thirty-five people in the affair of kidnapped imam Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (a.k.a. Abu Omar). Nasr was kidnapped by the CIA, with the knowledge of the Italian military intelligence service Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare (SISMI), in Milan in 2003 (see Noon February 17, 2003). Nasr, a former CIA asset (see August 27, 1995 and Shortly After), was then taken to Egypt, where he says he was tortured (see April-May 2004). The 26 Americans that are indicted can be tried in absentia in Italy and include Robert Seldon Lady, former chief of the CIA’s substation in Milan, the former CIA station chief in Rome, and an officer from the US air base in Aviano, near Venice. The nine Italians include former SISMI head Nicolo Pollari, but three of them are only charged with complicity in the kidnapping, not the kidnapping itself. However, none of the Americans are in Italy at this time, and Italy has not asked for them to be extradited. [Associated Press, 1/26/2007; CNN, 2/16/2007]
