As the Democratic Party’s nominee for US president, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is given his first classified intelligence briefing. The briefing includes information on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. An unnamed senior official will later say that Obama already is under the impression that bin Laden has to be hiding in Pakistan, and the briefing solidifies that view. The official says, “What I remember in terms of the aftermath of that briefing and into the transition was just how much the focus became on Pakistan.” [Reuters, 5/12/2011]
September-December 2008: US Special Forces Unwittingly Train Less than One Mile from Bin Laden’s Abbottabad Hideout
From September to December 2008, a team of US Special Forces trainers is based in Abbottabad, Pakistan, ironically less than one mile from the compound Osama bin Laden is hiding in at the time. The trainers are in Abbottabad as part of an unpublicized mission to train Pakistani Frontier Corps forces. The training takes place in Kakul Military Academy, Pakistan’s equivalent of the US’s famous West Point military academy. The training is later moved to Warsak, Pakistan. [Radio Free Europe, 5/6/2011; Washington Post, 5/11/2011]
September 8, 2008: US Drone Attack Fails to Assassinate Taliban Leaders Linked to ISI
A US drone attack targets the Haqqani network in the tribal region of Pakistan. Pakistani officials will say that five missiles kill 23 people and wound 18 more. The missiles hit a compound in North Waziristan run by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani. It appears they are targeted, since family members arrived at the compound just a half hour before. However, neither Haqqani network leader is killed. Officials say one of Jalaluddin Haqqani’s two wives, his sister, sister-in-law, and eight of his grandchildren are killed. The Haqqani network is considered a semi-autonomous part of the Taliban. The US believes the Haqqani network has been involved in recent attacks in Afghanistan, including the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul (see July 7, 2008) and a failed assassination attempt against Afghan President Hamid Karzai (see April 27, 2008). The Haqqani network is widely believed to be closely linked to the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency. [New York Times, 9/10/2008]
September 8, 2008: Al-Zawahiri Releases New Video Accusing Iran and US of Collaboration
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a video accusing Iran of collaborating with the United States. Excerpts of the video are played on the Qatar-based pan-Arabic TV channel Al Jazeera, but apparently not posted to the websites usually used for disseminating such videos. Al-Zawahiri says Tehran is “cooperating with the Americans in occupying Iraq and Afghanistan,” and denounces the Iranians for recognizing the two governments. “Not even one Shiite authority—whether in Iraq or elsewhere—has issued a fatwa [religious edict] obligating jihad and taking up of arms against the American crusader invaders in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he adds. The video also features clips of al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. [Los Angeles Times, 9/9/2008]
September 8, 2008: Member of European Parliament Calls for International Tribunal to Investigate 9/11
Giulietto Chiesa, a prominent Italian journalist who is also a member of the European Parliament, calls for an international tribunal to probe the events of 9/11. Chiesa makes his appeal in Berlin where he is to show his documentary Zero: An Investigation of 9/11, which argues that the US government’s account cannot be true. He says: “If feelings were strong enough a positive result could be obtained, but it would not happen immediately. So far it’s been the US administration that has won the information fight and obtained their result—unfortunately. Our task is to inform millions of people of the true situation. Everybody should be involved in this struggle with a tribunal or commission helping once we win approval for the idea.” Chiesa was a correspondent in Moscow for many years (see June 16, 1999). He announces that his film will be shown on Russian television (see September 12, 2008). [Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg), 9/8/2008]
September 9, 2008: New Metal Research May Explain WTC Collapses, Scientist Says
Sergei Dudarev, a scientist with Britain’s Atomic Energy Agency, says that newly-discovered properties of steel could explain why the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Dr. Dudarev researches steel that can withstand the extreme temperatures inside a nuclear fusion reactor. He says that at about 500° Celsius, a temperature often reached in building fires, tiny irregularities in the structure of steel can cause a softening of the metal, although that is still far below the melting point. Dudarev says: “The steel didn’t melt, it just became soft. It is an unusual state and the temperatures in the Twin Towers were high enough to cause it because the thermal insulation was knocked off the girders through the impact with the aircraft.” [Guardian, 9/9/2008; BBC News, 9/10/2008; Independent, 9/10/2008; ABC Radio National (Australia), 9/20/2008]
September 9, 2008: Zardari Becomes New President of Pakistan after Quick Election
Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of assassinated former leader Benazir Bhutto, becomes president of Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf resigned as president the previous month after growing pressure suggested he could be impeached (see August 18, 2008). A three-week election campaign quickly followed, and Zardari easily won the election (an electoral college vote, not a general election). Zardari’s elections completes Pakistan’s return to civilian rule after Musharraf seized power in a military coup nine years earlier. [Guardian, 9/9/2008]
“Mr. Ten Percent” – Zardari has a troubled history of numerous corruption allegations. His popular nickname, “Mr. Ten Percent,” refers to the widespread belief in Pakistan that he took a cut from many business deals when his wife Bhutto was prime minister of Pakistan twice in the 1990s. He spent 11 years in prison on corruption charges, although he was never actually convicted of a crime. Bhutto seemed poised for a return to power, but when she was assassinated in late 2007, Zardari essentially took her place as head of her political party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Supporters say he has matured during his years in prison. [Wall Street Journal, 9/5/2008]
September 10, 2008: US May Have Committed 9/11 Attacks, Says Former Syrian Minister
Mahdi Dakhlallah, a former Syrian minister of information, writes in the newspaper Teshreen that the US may have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. “These plans were ready and prepared [in advance]—and all that was needed was to find a pretext to begin their immediate implementation.… No one believes that it was possible to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in the same way and so fast had it not been for the 9/11 attacks. That’s how it always is: the end justifies the means.” [Jerusalem Post, 9/11/2008; Middle East Media Research Institute, 9/11/2008]
September 12, 2008: 9/11 Documentary Shown on Russian Television Is Praised by Panel Members
Russia’s Channel One broadcasts Zero: An Investigation into 9/11, a documentary made by the Italian journalist Giulietto Chiesa that disputes the US government’s account of the 9/11 attacks, followed by a discussion between various Russian and foreign personalities. While some panel members defend the US government’s account, others reject it and praise the film. Vitaly Tretyakov, the former editor in chief of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a major daily newspaper, calls the 9/11 Commission’s report “fiction” and says he could not believe that a small group of terrorists could have masterminded the attacks. Another journalist, Mikhail Leontyev, who is a Channel One presenter and editor in chief of Profil magazine, also expresses disbelief: “A certain organization committed a totally extraordinary act from the point of view of its coordination. Allegedly, this organization still exists, it continues fighting and killing people; it is keeping the US army in two countries in the world and, at the same time, there has not been a single [terrorist] act on the territory of the United States since.” He also says that the alleged organizers were controlled by US intelligence: “all the people who are regarded as the fictitious or real organizers of this [terrorist] act, all these people were controlled by the American special services.” The collapse of the World Trade Center is also discussed. Ashot Tamrazyan, the director of the Risks and Security of Buildings research center, says his organization had created a model and carried out many tests that had shown that the Twin Towers could not have collapsed unless there were other contributing factors. Robert Bridge, the editor in chief of the Moscow News, an English-language newspaper, says he does not believe Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon because of the lack of debris: “In any plane crash there are remains left. There is luggage, there are seats, etc.… Why did this plane crash so differently from any other crash we have seen?” Vladimir Dezhurov, a cosmonaut who observed the 9/11 events from the International Space Station, also questions the Pentagon crash (see (Between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). He says an air crash always leaves debris behind. [Francesco Tre and Franco Fracassi, 2008; BBC Monitoring, 9/12/2008] Commenting on the broadcast, a Weekly Standard article entitled “The Russian Government Warms Up to 9/11 Conspiracy Theories” says that the Kremlin is promoting 9/11 skepticism to stoke anti-Americanism (see also November 2, 2008). [Weekly Standard, 10/13/2008]
September 19, 2008: Martyr Video of 9/11 Hijacker Is Released Too Late for 9/11 Anniversary
Al-Qaeda releases a martyr video of 9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alghamdi. In the ten-minute video, in Arabic with English subtitles, Alghamdi says, “There are many proofs which clarify and encourage martyrdom operations. They are one of the ways of massacring the enemies of Allah, so you must carry them out.” The video was most likely recorded in Afghanistan in March 2001, at the same time most of the other hijackers recorded martyr videos (see (December 2000-March 2001)). This is the seventh one released. [Sun, 9/22/2008] Alghamdi’s speech is part of a 90-minute video featuring speeches by al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri and others. Al-Qaeda promised through the Internet to release the video in time for the 9/11 anniversary, as it did with other 9/11 hijacker videos each year, but the video appears one week late. Some counterterrorism experts say the delay could be a sign that al-Qaeda’s propaganda efforts are faltering. [Associated Press, 9/19/2008; Sun-Herald (Sydney), 9/21/2008] Al-Qaeda will not release any hijacker videos in 2009 or 2010.
