Badges - FBI: More terror plot warnings coming
- From: Charles Rahn <c.t.rahn@xxxxxxxx>
- To: Badges 1Badge <badges@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 11:51:14 -0400
Intelligence Officials: More Warnings of al-Qaida Terror Plots ComingSunday, 08
May 2011 08:42 PMBy Ronald Kessler
0diggThe FBI Laboratory has custody of the more than 100 items seized in the
raid of Osama bin Laden?s compound, and clues from this material will likely
lead to warnings of more al-Qaida plots, intelligence officials tell Newsmax.
The bureau played a key role in helping to train U.S. Navy SEALs for their
mission, focusing on the commandos' task of gathering evidence about al-Qaida
in the compound. After 9/11, the FBI took on the role of safeguarding any
material seized in U.S. counterterrorism actions around the globe. It helped to
preserve the chain of custody should the material be presented as evidence in a
prosecution by the U.S. or by other countries. In addition, the FBI is in the
best position to analyze fingerprints, DNA traces, and handwriting.
The material taken from the bin Laden compound includes documents such as
letters and handwritten notes from bin Laden, shoulder weapons and handguns,
digital thumb drives, computer hard drives, CDs, DVDs, and cell phones. At the
CIA?s direction, the FBI has distributed copies or photographs of the material
to the CIA Counterterrorism Center and other agencies poring over the treasure
trove of leads.
?The documents could have fingerprints on them,? a counterterrorism official
says. ?The loose media can have fingerprints, they can have DNA on them. Many
people actually transfer DNA when they handle something. So we?re looking for
those kinds of things.?
The clues leading to bin Laden?s location in Pakistan go back to when Abu
Zubaydah was waterboarded in 2002. He gave up information about bin Laden?s
couriers as well as information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a
member of bin Laden?s inner circle. After being subjected to coercive
techniques, Abu Faraj al-Libi provided more detail on the couriers. In turn,
clues from Abu Zubaydah and bin al-Shibh led to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the
architect of the 9/11 plot. After being waterboarded, KSM confirmed knowing the
courier who turned out to be the key to finding bin Laden but denied the man
was connected to al-Qaida, creating suspicion that he was indeed important.
CIA Director Leon Panetta has publicly confirmed that coercive interrogation
techniques helped lead the CIA to bin Laden?s compound in Abbotabad, about 35
miles from Pakistan?s capital of Islamabad.
Working with those leads and more recent ones, the CIA zeroed in on Abu Ahmed
al-Kuwaiti, a pseudonym used by bin Laden?s main courier. Last year, the
courier took a phone call that allowed the CIA to track him to bin Laden?s
compound.
Four months ago, the CIA told the FBI that it had honed in on a high-value
target. From National Security Council meetings, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller
III knew the target was bin Laden. Without knowing the identity of the target,
FBI agents began training with Navy SEAL Team 6 in Afghanistan on what material
should be seized and how it should be handled.
?The training was so they knew what to look for, what was of greatest value,?
an intelligence official says. ?They would quick grab an item, bag it, tag it,
drop it into a bin, zip it up, put it on the aircraft.?
By the time the SEALs hit the target, ?They?d already practiced and done this
literally hundreds of times,? the intelligence official says.
?They could do it in their sleep. They knew to pick up those things they
thought were really important.? However, ?They did not have time to dig into
every drawer and look for hidden crevices,? he says.
While the FBI has the materials, the CIA decides which agency should have
copies.
?At the end of the day, it was the CIA?s operation,? the intelligence official
says. ?It was their opportunity, and they?re going to make the judgments about
how you action things. For the most part, anything that has a domestic nexus or
U.S. interest nexus is going to get optioned into the FBI or Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) if it?s threat-related. If it?s going to be an overseas
or ?get? action, it will be handled by the CIA or by the State Department for
disclosure to a friendly service. Anything that happens in the theaters of
operation where the combined commands have an interest or an active role, you
get action to the military.?
Sending in a ground team to capture or kill bin Laden was considered, but the
CIA and SEALs decided that going in by helicopter was the safest course. The
raid took place at 1 a.m. Pakistan time on May 1.
?They flew in by helicopter because they wanted to get a lot of forces on the
objective very quickly, and they had to have a very quick evacuation
capability,? a counterterrorism official says. ?They could very easily have
snuck in, but arguably, we probably couldn?t get that number of forces all the
way that deep in Pakistan clandestinely to execute an assault like that.?
If the American assault came from the ground, bin Laden?s people could have
repelled the SEALs by spilling gasoline at entrances and igniting it.
?So the decision was, it was better to come in overhead by fast ropes, and then
also have the ability to evacuate everybody very quickly,? the official says.
During the raid, one of the Black Hawk helicopters stalled, forcing a hard
landing that disabled the helicopter. That forced the SEALs to abandon their
plan to rappel down into the main building. Instead, they assaulted the
compound from the ground after all.
Under a covert action finding signed by President Obama, the SEALs were to kill
bin Laden ?unless he was completely in a surrendering posture,? the official
says. ?He was going to look for any crack at all to escape, and I?m sure he had
no reservations about taking SEAL team members with him. The outcome was in the
hands of UBL [the intelligence community designation for Usama bin Laden], and
he did not surrender himself to capture.?
Bin Laden had 500 euros, equal to $715, sewn into his clothes, along with two
telephone numbers. When the discovery of the phone numbers leaked to the press,
intelligence officials became more cautious about parceling out the material to
different agencies.
?The disclosure of the two telephone numbers potentially undermined an
opportunity for us to exploit,? the official says. ?You want time to track and
follow the people who have those numbers. The one thing about phone numbers,
they?re usually easy to get rid of and cut all your ties to them.?
So far, no evidence has indicated that anyone in the Pakistan government
supported bin Laden at the compound.
Besides the FBI and CIA, the National Security Agency (NSA) and Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) have copies of the materials and are running down
leads.
?These agencies are scrubbing the data against their databases,? an
intelligence official says. ?Are there indicators, has this number shown up
before? Has this name shown up before? And then they come back together and
coordinate every day. They found this, this is what we found, and the CIA is
taking a lead role in this and making sure what is then disseminated in the
form of IRs?intelligence reports? is coordinated, is controlled, and is
disseminated so that the appropriate agency, such as the FBI, could properly
take action.?
Already, DHS has alerted law enforcement agencies to a plot bin Laden was
considering against the rail sector on the upcoming tenth anniversary of the
9/11 attacks.
?Very likely in the next few weeks, there will be notices and bulletins put out
about this risk, that threat, this possibility,? the intelligence official
says. ?In today?s day and age, you?ve got to get the information out and at
least start taking the preventative measures and then run everything to ground.?
While it will take weeks to go over the information seized, ?We will develop
more sources, and they will develop more intel on targets, and they will
develop new targets of opportunity, and it might take months or potentially
years before we realize that this sensitive site exploitation resulted in this
action two years down the road,? the counterterrorism official predicts.
The process is similar to the one that led to bin Laden.
?Much like the information that came from some of the interrogations early on,
maybe the information doesn?t thread together initially,? the official says.
?But over time, it builds a picture. In this case, by identifying couriers, it
led to our objective.?
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