My latest read – Triple Cross

My understanding of the events leading up to 9/11 have been shaped by great authors and believe Triple Cross: How bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI–and Why Patrick Fitzgerald Failed to Stop Him by Peter Lance makes significant contributions to understanding the full breakdown of the US intelligence community.  Many elements of his research and interviews will should shock Americans.

Lance reveals Al Qaeda had a mole in the NYFD who was able to steal blue prints of the World Trade Center before the 1993 bombing and that US authorities had been tracking Al Qaeda for more than 10 years.

The book’s primary focus is the role of Al Qaeda master spy Ali Mohamed and his work as a mole within US Army intelligence, the CIA and the FBI.  Lance brings a number of key points that were overlooked or more appropriately ignored by the 9/11 Commission. 

Patrick Fitzgerald, National Security Coordinator for the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York met multiple times with Ali Mohamed years before 9/11.  During this timeframe Ali Mohamed declared his loyalty to Osama bin Ladin and told Fitzgerald that he did not need a fatwà to attack America.  And yet Fitzgerald did nothing.

Ali Mohamed was identified by the US State Department as Osama bin Ladin’s first security trainer and helped smuggle Al Qaeda’s co-leader Ayman al-Sawahiri into mosques located in California and North Carolina for recruiting and fund raising.  Lance reveals that even Bin Ladin recruited at mosques in Chicago in the late 1980s.

Ali Mohamed was a former Major in the Egyptian Army’s military intelligence unit which actually participated in the assassination of Anwar Sadat.  After leaving the Egyptian Army Mohamed was able to  enlist the US Army and was stationed at Fort Bragg’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and worked with the Green Berets.  Even Mohamed’s commanding officer thought Ali Mohamed was working with the CIA:

“I think you or I would have a better chance of winning Powerball, than an Egyptian major in the unit that assassinated Sadat would have getting a visa, getting to California … getting into the Army and getting assigned to a Special Forces unit …. That just doesn’t happen.”

Lance indicates loosely there may be ties between Ali Mohamed and the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983 which killed 220 American servicemen.  In 2000 Fitzgerald had Ali Mohamed arrested and charged with the August 7, 1998 bombings of US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

At the same time Lance provides a rather detailed account of the role terrorist Ramzi Yousef played as a member of Al Qaeda.  A British-educated electrical engineer Yousef masterminded the initial terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. Yousef was also the mastermind of the Bojinka Plot which was aimed at exploding bombs on-board planes flying over the Atlantic.

Yousef “wet tested” a remote explosive device on PAL flight 434 (a Boeing 747) on December 11, 1994 which killed one person. Fortunately a veteran pilot was able to safely land the 747.  Yousef was arrested by US and Pakistani authorities and put on trial in New York City. According to Lance, Yousef coordinated the Al Qaeda bombing of TWA flight 800 while on trial.  Yousef hoped the bombing would result in a mistrial.  His work to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 was to force the US Government to release Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who was on trial in New York City.

Triple Cross highlights the odd relationship Yousef had with Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols and New York City’s Colombo crime family killer Greg Scarpa Jr.  Today we know Yousef worked with New York’s Mafia and taught Nichols how to build bombs like the one he constructed that blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19 1995.  Lance details Yousef was funded by Osama bin Ladin, and was the primary architect of Al Qaeda’s planes-as-missiles plan that culminated in the 9/11 attacks.

Yousef is the nephew of Al Qaeda senior leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who was arrested in Pakistan and is now held by the US Government.  Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University with a degree in mechanical engineering and has confessed to participating in a series of terrorist attacks from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Operation Bojinka, 9/11 attacks, the Richard Reid shoe bombing, the murder of Daniel Pearl and responsibility for Al Qaeda’s Bali bombings.

The problem for US law enforcement, intelligence agencies and the 9/11 Commission is Lance establishes a much longer timeline of Al Qaeda’s presence in America  — primarily in New York City and Santa Clara California. This means our Government, CIA and FBI are more responsible for the failures to stop Al Qaeda’s terrorist activities in America.  Fitzgerald was the prosecutor in the case against Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, known as “The Blind Sheikh” and 11 others charged in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.  He had a long understanding of Al Qaeda’s aims.  Lance is able to trace Bin Ladin’s support for terrorist attacks back to the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on November 5th 1990.

Lance questions how Jamie Gorelick and Dietrich Snell, lawyers on the 9/11 Commission staff ignored their previous work tracking Al Qaeda.  Snell was responsible for writing the Al Qaeda timeline in America but moved it up two full years to hide US intelligence work that brings into question serious laps in judgement by US law enforcement including his role in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York with Patrick Fitzgerald.

Gorelick permitted Osama bin Ladin’s brother in law Mohammed Jamil Khalifa to evade US prosecution in 1994 and wrote the infamous “wall memo” that “prevented communication between intelligence agents and criminal investigators” in regards to prosecuting terrorism.  The Commission indicates Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the key to 9/11. Lance clearly shows that responsibility belonged to Ramzi Yousef.

Triple Cross documents how FDNY Fire Marshall Ronald Bucca who was killed on the 78th floor of the South Tower held top secret military clearance and was able to document that Al Qaeda would return to take down the towers following their unsuccessful 1993 bombing.  Bucca was a part of the team that investigated the bombing and acknowledges Yousef (having access to blueprints of the World Trade Center) was not far off from actually bringing down the North Tower in 1993, missing a key support structure by less than 500 feet.  Bucca was shocked to learn Al Qaeda had a mole, Ahmed Amin Refai inside the New York City Fire Department.  Lance indicated that Bucca was able to gather enough data regarding Al Qaeda and their intentions to attack the World Trade Center again.  He submitted his research to the CIA — but was rebuffed.  The US military named their first prison in Iraq Camp Bucca in his memory.

One of the least understood and less known issues developed since 9/11 was the revelation of a US military intelligence database Able Danger.  Lance demonstrates how those running Able Danger in 1999 were able to construct Al Qaeda’s inner circle in America and displayed enough information to identify almost every terrorist who participated on 9/11.

A difficult book on a difficult topic that was difficult to put down.

Tags: Triple Cross, Peter Lance, 9/11 Commission, 9/11, Al Qaeda, Bin Ladin, Patrick Fitzgerald, Ali Mohamed, reading