Sometimes Notes Get Destroyed, Sometimes They Don’t

/in , /by

One more point about the case of Mohamed Mohamud, the accused bomber from Oregon. A government filing submitted last month addresses the defense’s requests for notes regarding various interactions Mohamud had with the FBI.  It describes two sets of hand-written notes from a FBI agent(s). The first are the notes an FBI agent took after Mohamud got stopped at the airport last year.

The government has notes of its interview with defendant on June 14, 2010. Those notes are accurately summarized in the report of that interview that has been provided to defendant. The government has compared the agent’s handwritten notes to the final, written report, and there are no variances or discrepancies. The only information that appears in the notes, but not in the report, is a statement made by defendant or one of his parents that he was born in Mogadishu, and the date defendant said he planned to return from Alaska. Thus, the notes should not be produced. The government does not have notes from its second, and only other, interview with defendant that occurred on November 26, 2011.

Those handwritten notes were preserved.

But there was another set of handwritten notes–those documenting the July 30 meet at which a recording device failed. Those notes were not preserved.

Defendant has also asked for notes “purporting to relate to the July 30th meeting.” The contents of the July meeting were summarized by an FBI agent in a typewritten report that was provided to defendant on December 10, 2010. Consistent with his practice in all cases where witness statements were not taken, the agent memorialized his notes in their entirety in typewritten reports for all the meetings between UCEs and defendant and, after doing so, he destroyed his handwritten notes. All of the reports written based on those notes have been provided to the defense. [my emphasis]

Now, it’s not clear that the agent in question is the same (that is, it’s not clear that the same agent chose to destroy just some of his notes); the complaint uses “I” a lot, but does not use “we” in its discussion of the follow-up to the airport stop, and the agent who destroyed his notes is not stationed in Portland. The government explanation–that one interview included a witness statement while the other did not–sort of offers an explanation if the same agent took both sets of notes, though not a logical one. After all, if something happens with the recording in the most important meeting in a case, wouldn’t it make sense for an agent to make an exception to his normal procedure, and keep his notes?

The government admits as much when it talks about making sure remaining records of the meeting are preserved.

Even before the filing of defendant’s motion, the government had taken steps to ensure that any remaining notes or other documentation of the July 30, 2010 meeting were preserved and that the events surrounding the meeting were documented.

If keeping remaining records after a failed recording makes sense after indictment, doesn’t it make sense before indictment, too?

Yet one of the reasons the government objects to an order the defense has proposed limiting FBI agents’ ability to discuss the meeting is that if they’re prohibited from doing that, they won’t be able to provide further reports from the meeting to the defense.

Additionally, the proposed order is problematic because it would prohibit agents from discussing any issue related to the August 3 report, which includes not only details of the meeting but other details of defendant’s initial contact with the agent. The order would also limit the government’s ability to comply with its discovery obligations. For example, the agents who are processing the discovery would be unable to finish any reports related to the July 30 meeting and would be unable to complete the ongoing process of providing defendant with additional discovery related to that meeting.

In other words, the government seems to be saying that the court should not order its employees not to talk about the meeting, because doing so would prevent another person who heard the meeting to complete a report, almost a year after the fact, about the meeting, because she has to talk to others to complete such a report.

More on the Year-Long Pursuit of Mohamed Mohamud

/in , , /by

Teddy did a diary this morning on a newly-reported detail in the case of Mohamed Mohamud–the Portland man accused of attempting to set off a bomb. The FBI had contacted him a year earlier than originally disclosed. The first contact with Mohamud the complaint describes took place in June 2010, after Mohamud was prevented from boarding a flight to Alaska.

On June 14, 2010, MOHAMUD was contacted at Portland, Oregon International Airport after he attempted to board a flight to Kodiak, Alaska. MOHAMUD was not allowed to board the aircraft. Shortly thereafter, MOHAMUD was interviewed by the FBI.

Shortly thereafter, an undercover agent contacted Mohamud, leading up to the July 30, 2010 meeting that was not taped.

An FBI Undercover Employee (UCE1) contacted MOHAMUD in June 2010 under the guise of being affiliated with UA1 and UA1’s associates. MOHAMUD and UCE1 ultimately agreed to meet in Portland on July 30,2010.

But a filing submitted yesterday shows that the Oregon State Police got a report on him in November 2009, after which an FBI agent named Bill Smith started contacting Mohamud.

As noted above, the government seeks to characterize a November 2009 interaction withMohamed as “an unrelated matter.” Resp. at 17. While the direct contact with Mohamed appeared to involve only the Oregon State Police (OSP), the FBI was clearly involved behind the scene. As the government has only provided minimal discovery related to the FBI’s involvement, with much of it redacted, Mohamed cannot assess the extent of the information the FBI gathered andsubsequently used in crafting its sting operation.

What the discovery does show is that the OSP immediately notified the FBI upon receiving a complaint about Mohamed, despite the fact that the substance of the report would ordinarily not result in FBI involvement. Although the redactions in the FBI report prevent the defense from understanding the full scope of the FBI’s role, it appears that agents met with OSP officers prior to contact with Mohamed and were involved with the subsequent interview. OSP then requested consent to image Mohamed’s computer, which was provided to an FBI analyst within hours. Seven days later, agent Bill Smith began contacting Mohamed and soliciting his participation in violence against the West. A short time later, the FBI analyst copied specific information from Mohamed’scomputer and provided it to a fellow agent. The analyst did not write a report of his actions until ayear later.

Other filings make it clear that the OSP polygraphed Mohamud at this point and suggests the search of his computer was consensual.

At first, the government didn’t admit that “Bill Smith” worked for the government (and it remains unclear who he works for). Only after the defense confronted them with that fact did they concede he was, but they claimed these earlier contacts have no connection to this case.

The discovery provided up to [the discovery deadline of February 15] and after included no indication that Bill Smith was a government agent. The government must possess the paperwork and reports that are necessarily generated by a government agent who contacts a citizen for such investigative purposes. If not for fortunate defense work, this exculpatory fact would have continued to be suppressed. It was only by backtracking through voluminous emails, and clearing out hundreds of lines of distracting code, that the defense was able to understand Bill Smith’s apparent connection to the government. Once confronted with the defense conclusions,the government admitted Bill Smith acted as a government agent. However, the conscious determination by the agency that Bill Smith should not be disclosed to the defense as an agent,purportedly because the government does not believe the information is helpful to the defense,establishes that the government alone should not be permitted to determine what is exculpatory without this Court’s supervision and instruction.

While the government claims this contact was discontinued in May 2010 (a month before the contact they claim started this investigation), Mohamud continued to email “Smith” until August 2010.

Bill Smith had e-mail contact with defendant beginning in late 2009 and continuing through May 2010. The contact with Smith did not relate to the facts of this case, and was discontinued by the government. Defendant, however, on his own continued to contact Smith through August 2010, after the government had ceased contact with him, by forwarding Smith e-mails, including one that supported violent jihad.

The fact that the government delayed admission of these earlier contacts also means the government has not disclosed the extent to which this earlier contact was used to tailor conversations with Mohamud.

[T]he undercover agents clearly used information from surveillance activities in approaching Mohamed. One obvious example is that agent Bill Smith attempted to ingratiate himself with Mohamed by recommending an online publication based on the government’s belief that Mohamed had connections to the publication.

While it appears that Mohamud was under surveillance before the first contact with the OSP (the complaint cites some emails he had with someone in Yemen August 2009), the earlier contact raises a whole bunch of questions about what led the government to pretend to follow-up on his emails in June 2010.

WH Stenographer: Obama Took Big Risk in Deciding to Go after Bin Laden

/in , /by

There’s not all that much in this Bob Woodward piece on the raid to get Osama bin Laden that hasn’t already been reported generally elsewhere: just some details about the surveillance leading up to the raid (which I’ll discuss below) and a cute anecdote about how they measured bin Laden’s corpse to make sure it was taller than six feet.

When bin Laden’s corpse was laid out, one of the Navy SEALs was asked to stretch out next to it to compare heights. The SEAL was 6 feet tall. The body was several inches taller.

After the information was relayed to Obama, he turned to his advisers and said: “We donated a $60 million helicopter to this operation. Could we not afford to buy a tape measure?”

So it’s fair, I guess, to take the article’s selected emphasis as the narrative the White House wanted told. And that narrative focuses on what a risky decision it was to approve the raid.

The [phone call between Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti and a friend, from which Woodward includes direct quotes] and several other pieces of information, other officials said, gave President Obama the confidence to launch a politically risky mission to capture or kill bin Laden, a decision he took despite dissension among his key national security advisers and varying estimates of the likelihood that bin Laden was in the compound.

To communicate what a difficult decision it was, Woodward provides the competing estimates of the chances that they had really discovered OBL.

Several assessments concluded there was a 60 to 80 percent chance that bin Laden was in the compound. Michael Leiter, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, was much more conservative. During one White House meeting, he put the probability at about 40 percent.

When a participant suggested that was a low chance of success, Leiter said, “Yes, but what we’ve got is 38 percent better than we have ever had before.”

To back that up, Woodward provides details about the limits of the US intelligence. Of note, Woodward describes that the US was never able to positively ID OBL, in spite of the fact that a man–presumably OBL–paced around the compound for an hour or two every day. While Woodward doesn’t say whether the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency was able to get a view of his face (the implication is it was not), he does say that the absence of any information about the size of windows or walls in the compound made it difficult to even measure the height of the pacing man.

So we can take two lessons from the story President Obama’s top advisers leaked to Bob Woodward. First, Obama took a pretty big chance when he ordered SEALs to jump into a compound in the middle of a Pakistani garrison town. And second, if you want to evade our surveillance, keep your battery out of your cell phone until you’re at least 90 minutes away from your stationary location and build that location such that any outside space offers no features to allow the NGA to get a good read on you.

Like SSCI, HPSCI Requires DNI to Close Gaping Security Holes … by 2013

/in , /by

Steven Aftergood has the House intelligence report online and–as he points out–it contains a requirement that the intelligence community close one of the gaping holes in network security highlighted by the WikiLeaks case. The deadline? 2013.

SEC. 402. INSIDER THREAT DETECTION PROGRAM.

(a) Initial Operating Capability.–Not later than October 1, 2012, the Director of National Intelligence shall establish an initial operating capability for an effective automated insider threat detection program for the information resources in each element of the intelligence community in order to detect unauthorized access to, or use or transmission of, classified intelligence.

(b) Full Operating Capability.–Not later than October 1, 2013, the Director of National Intelligence shall ensure the program described in subsection (a) has reached full operating capability.

(c) Report.–Not later than December 1, 2011, the Director of National Intelligence shall submit to the congressional intelligence committees a report on the resources required to implement the insider threat detection program referred to in subsection (a) and any other issues related to such implementation the Director considers appropriate to include in the report.

(d) Information Resources Defined.–In this section, the term “information resources” means networks, systems, workstations, servers, routers, applications, databases, websites, online collaboration environments, and any other information resources in an element of the intelligence community designated by the Director of National Intelligence.

This is precisely what the Senate Intelligence Committee is also mandating. As I pointed out earlier, this seems to simply take DOD’s own lackadaisical deadline and make it a requirement.

In other words, if closing this security gap a year and a half after the leaks are alleged to have occurred is too tough, then they can go ahead and take another year or so to close the barn door.

Though to be fair, this deadline may come directly from the lackadaisical DOD, as the deadlines given here seem to match those DOD aspires to hit.

Now, maybe it’s considered unpatriotic to note that our intelligence community–and its congressional overseers–are tolerating pretty shoddy levels of security all while insisting that they takes leaks seriously.

But seriously: if our government is going to claim that leaks are as urgent as it does, if it’s going to continue to pretend that secrets are, you know, really secret, then it really ought to at least pretend to show urgency on responding to the gaping technical issues that will not only protect against leakers, but also provide better cybersecurity and protect against spies. Aspiring to fix those issues years after the fact really doesn’t cut it.

Ah well! Bin Laden is dead. Who else might want our secrets?

Obama’s DOJ Advocated Lying to Judges in June 2009

/in , , /by

Back in 2006, a bunch of Islamic groups FOIAed the FBI to find out what kind of records the FBI had on them. The FBI blew the request off, so in 2007, the groups sued. When the groups got their data, they complained the FBI had improperly labeled much of the files as outside the scope of their request and in the case of CAIR, clearly not provided all the documents it had. Upon review, Judge Cormac Carney realized the government had lied to him about what was in the documents and the reasons they withheld information. His opinion in response, first written in 2009, was just rewritten in unclassified form and released. It’s a remarkable glimpse into the government’s disdain for separation of powers.

Much of Carney’s ruling responds to a government brief dated June 19, 2009 that remains sealed. But Carney’s ruling makes it pretty clear what the government argued. It suggests the government took Subsection 552(c) of FOIA–which allows the government to withhold information on ongoing criminal investigations, informant identities, or national security–and argued that it permitted the government to lie not only to plaintiffs in a FOIA suit, but also to the judge overseeing the suit.

Subsection (c) thus applies in the rare circumstance in which identifying the basis for withholding information or even disclosing the existence of a record could itself compromise an ongoing criminal investigation, the identity of a confidential informant, or classified foreign intelligence or international terrorism information. Id. In this limited context, the FOIA authorizes an agency to withhold information from a requester without disclosing its basis for doing so. Id. Nothing in Subsection (c), however, allows an agency to withhold information from the Court.

Carney’s ruling goes on to make clear that the government used a 1986 Ed Meese memo interpreting this exemption–stating that the government could tell a FOIA requester that no responsive records exist–and argued that Meese had condoned telling a court that no responsive records exist.

The Government’s policy is to inform a requesting party that there are no records in instances in which the agency determines that “disclosure of the very existence of the records in question ‘could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,’” or “the mere act of invoking Exemption 7(D) in response to a FOIA request tells the requester that somewhere within the records encompassed by the scope of his particular request there is reference to at least one confidential source,” or “the very existence or nonexistence, is itself a classified fact.” Id. at 20–21, 23, 25.

Despite its broad interpretation of the law enforcement exemptions and the new Section 552(c) exclusions, the Attorney General’s Memorandum does not condone lying to the Judiciary. To the contrary, the Attorney General’s Memorandum prohibits such conduct.

And finally, Carney’s ruling makes it clear that the government argued that even filing an in camera filing telling the judge that it had withheld records under this subsection would compromise national security.

Filing an in camera declaration concurrently with its public filings would not have compromised national security, and the Government’s argument to the contrary is simply not credible.

All of which leads to this true, but seemingly outdated, conclusion from Carney.

The Government argues that there are times when the interests of national security require the Government to mislead the Court. The Court strongly disagrees. The Government’s duty of honesty to the Court can never be excused, no matter what the circumstance. The Court is charged with the humbling task of defending the Constitution and ensuring that the Government does not falsely accuse people, needlessly invade their privacy or wrongfully deprive them of their liberty. The Court simply cannot perform this important task if the Government lies to it. Deception perverts justice. Truth always promotes it.

Now, aside from the fact that this ruling makes it clear that the Obama DOJ wrote a filing in June 2009 that advocated lying to judges, the suit is interesting for several reasons. As EFF notes, the revelation that the FBI lied on this FOIA response may suggest it has done so in other FOIA suits. And who know? We know Obama’s DOJ submitted several versions of revised declarations in the al-Haramain case in 2009; so it’s possible they were advocating lying to judges in that case, too.

But it’s also interesting for what it says about the underlying case. As I noted, the most obviously incomplete response that led to this suit came in the case of CAIR and Hussam Ayloush, the Executive Director of CAIR in LA. Originally, the FBI gave them a single document each, which was simply not credible given the amount of FBI surveillance of CAIR that had already been made clear.

Just as importantly, even as the government told CAIR it had just one document on it, CAIR was getting increasingly involved in a suit representing the Islamic Center of Irvine (that Center was not a party to this FOIA, though the Islamic Centers of San Gabriel Valley and Hawthorne were, and the suit makes it clear the informant reported on eight other mosques in Orange County and that Monteilh was part of a “broader surveillance program”) in a suit regarding an FBI informant’s violations of their civil rights.

An ex-con, Monteilh began working for the FBI in 2003. In 2006, he was asked to infiltrate the popular Islamic Center of Irvine, where he started attending prayers five times a day and donning an Islamic robe.

In May 2007, Monteilh recorded a conversation in a car with two worshipers, in which Monteilh suggested blowing up buildings. In the tape, one man agrees with Monteilh. But a few days after the conversation, the two worshipers contacted the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and reported Monteilh as a potential terrorist. Other worshippers told mosque leaders that they were scared of Monteilh and felt as though he was trying to entrap them. In June 2007, the mosque obtained a restraining order against the informant.

His relationship with the FBI deteriorated shortly afterwards and, after threatening to go public, Monteilh says he signed a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for $25,000. In December 2007, Monteilh was arrested on a grand-theft charge and went to jail for 16 months.

Monteilh’s role as an informant was exposed in February 2009. Cormac Carney is the judge assigned to this suit.

In other words, back in 2007 when the government was withholding information on informants from CAIR and a bunch of southern California Islamic Centers, another Islamic Center and CAIR were exposing the offensive actions of what would turn out to be a FBI informant. And by the time the government claimed it could lie to Judge Carney in 2009, details of Monteilh’s informant activities were already becoming clear. And by the time Judge Carney ended his revised opinion last month with the sentence,

By disclosing that there are other documents that are responsive to Plaintiffs’ request, Plaintiffs will not learn anything they do not already know.

Groups affiliated with the plaintiffs in the FOIA case had already submitted a complaint to Carney laying out the type of information the FBI used an informant in one Islamic group to collect and stating that the FBI told the informant that “every mosque in the area” was under surveillance.

Not only did the government claim it could lie to Article III judges. It did so to hide information that was already being exposed as improper.

Update: I’ve reread the complaint on the informant, and note that they discovered Monteilh through the arrest of Ahmed Niazi in February 2009. (See PDF 42-43) At his bail hearing, the FBI testified to information collected via a confidential informant, who was Monteilh. But what’s particularly interesting is that when Monteilh was trying to elicit comments about violence, he did so with Niazi, who reported them to the cops and Hussam Ayloush. Ayloush reported him to the FBI. So Ayloush is actually named in this suit.

Also note: the reason Carney is presiding in the Monteilh suit is because it was determined to be a related case. The FBI subsequently tried to have this case transferred to the judge in Monteilh’s suit against the FBI, but the judge in that case declined.

Tracking the Courier … Through Hassan Ghul

/in , /by

Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo have fleshed out the story I linked here, describing the threads of intelligence that led to the courier–whose name they report as Sheikh Abu Ahmed–who in turn led to Osama bin Laden. The story includes the following steps:

  • Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, months after he was waterboarded and via “standard” interrogation, admits he knows someone named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, but denies he has anything to do with al Qaeda.
  • Hassan Ghul, who was captured in Iraq in 2004, reveals that Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was an al Qaeda courier
  • Under CIA interrogation, Abu Faraj al-Libi admits he learned he was replacing KSM through a courier, but denied knowing al-Kuwaiti so strenuously CIA figured he must be important
  • Via still unclear means, CIA learns Abu Ahmed’s real name
  • US picks up Abu Ahmed talking to someone else it was monitoring, speaking from a location away from the compound
  • US tracks Abu Ahmed back to compound

The story has many more details, so go read the whole thing and then come back for my long-winded discussion.

First, some general comments. This narrative still seems to be missing at least one step: how they learned Abu Ahmed’s real name. As I noted earlier, the senior administration official who briefed on this the other day said they learned that name four years ago, so sometime about a year after the time in 2005-2006 when al-Libi’s interrogation would have made it clear al-Kuwaiti was a key figure.

Further, the narrative the AP tells now makes it even more clear how ineffective the CIA program was. The AP’s sources specify that KSM did not admit he knew al-Kuwaiti while being waterboarded. But that sort of dodges the whole issue: in response to his torture, according to KSM, he made up false locations for OBL. At the same time he was shielding information that could lead to OBL–and he continued to shield it under “standard” interrogation (again, it’s a pity FBI’s KSM expert never got to interrogate him). And then al-Libi, when he was in the CIA’s interrogation program, managed to shield that same information even after the CIA recognized it was important.

The CIA program failed to do one of the most important things it set out to do, break through detainees’ efforts to hide OBL.

Now onto the most fascinating part of this story: the role of Hassan Ghul. Here’s how AP describes his role.

Then in 2004, top al-Qaida operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was a courier, someone crucial to the terrorist organization. In particular, Ghul said, the courier was close to Faraj al-Libi, who replaced Mohammed as al-Qaida’s operational commander. It was a key break in the hunt for in bin Laden’s personal courier.

“Hassan Ghul was the linchpin,” a U.S. official said.

I’ve written about Ghul a bunch, largely because his treatment in 2004 appears to have presented legal problems for the Bush Administration with regards to deportation from Iraq, relations between DOD and CIA, and torture itself, all of which bubbled over just as tensions about the interrogation program arose. Just as interesting, Ghul is widely understood to have been disappeared (and there were doubts about his identity). Given the Ibn Sheikh al-Libi precedent–where they disappeared and then suicided a detainee with the most inconvenient information–Ghul’s disappearance remains an key unexplained detail. I had, in the past, wondered whether claims that Ghul served as an envoy from al Qaeda to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were overblown (which would provide one explanation for his disappearance), but Ghul’s knowledge of al-Kuwaiti (and the capture of al-Libi nine months after Ghul’s interrogation at least appears to have begun in earnest) would seem to confirm he did turn out to be who he said he was: someone with real ties to top al Qaeda leaders.

But here’s the other remarkable bit. Ghul was last heard of when the British al Qaeda figure Rangzieb Ahmed claimed to have been held with Ghul in Pakistan from 2006-2007, after which Ghul was moved. But at least according to a Goldman tweet from yesterday, after spending time in Romania, Ghul was freed. Particularly given the legal exposure the Bush Administration might have specifically with Ghul (I’ll explain this in a future post), I find that remarkable.

And about that Nuclear Hellstorm Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Promised if Osama bin Laden Was Killed?

/in , /by

When the WikiLeaks Gitmo Files were first released last week, the Telegraph’s top headline warned of a “nuclear hellstorm” if Osama bin Laden were captured or killed.

One of the terrorist group’s most senior figures warned that al-Qaeda had obtained and hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe that would be detonated if Osama bin Laden was killed or captured.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda mastermind currently facing trial in America over the 9/11 atrocities, was involved in a range of plans including attacks on US nuclear plants and a “nuclear hellstorm” plot in America.

[snip]

According to the US WikiLeaks files, a Libyan detainee, Abu Al-Libi, “has knowledge of al-Qaeda possibly possessing a nuclear bomb”. Al-Libi, the operational chief of al-Qaeda and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before his detention, allegedly knew the location of a nuclear bomb in Europe that would be detonated if bin Laden were killed or captured.

That headline was based on two details from the Gitmo files. First, this passage from Abu Faraj al-Libi’s Detainee Assessment Brief:

(S//NF) Detainee has knowledge of al-Qaida possibly possessing a nuclear bomb. Al-Qaida associate Sharif al-Masri stated in June or July 2004, upon encountering difficulties in moving the nuclear bomb, detainee commented if al-Qaida was able to move the bomb, al-Qaida would find operatives to use it. However, detainee told Sharif al-Masri that al-Qaida currently had no operatives in the US. The operatives would be Europeans of Arab or Asian descent. The device was reportedly located in Europe.40 Sharif al-Masri reported detainee would know about the bomb and its exact location.41 Sharif al-Masri believes if UBL were to be captured or killed, the bomb would be detonated in the US, detainee would be one of those able to give the order.42

And this single line from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s DAB.

(U) Detainee told his interrogators that al-Qaida had planned to create a “nuclear hell storm” in America.

Now, the reference to al-Libi is of particular interest given accounts of how we found Osama bin Laden, as I have laid out here. I think it likely that al-Libi was the source of the information on the courier(s) that ultimately led to OBL’s compound.

That said, note the intelligence in that passage. The first sentence claims, uncritically, that al-Libi “has knowledge of al-Qaida possibly possessing a nuclear bomb”–though the use of the word “possibly” suggests some doubt. And the remaining 6 sentences of that paragraph are cited to Sharif al-Masri, not al-Libi himself. (Note, CNN appears to have gotten this utterly and completely wrong in this article.)

Al-Masri was detained in 2004 and reports from his interrogation–with the news on WMD–were leaked. As of 2006, his whereabouts remained unknown; I’m checking to see if his whereabouts are still unknown. [Update: His whereabouts were still unknown in March 2008, h/t Jeff Kaye.] [Update: Andy Worthington confirms that al-Masri is one of the detainees who has disappeared; he was never in Gitmo.] (Remember, too, that the Bradbury memos were written to retroactively authorize torture committed in this 2004 time period.)

But none of the reporting on nukes in al-Libi’s file comes from al-Libi himself, and it notes that “detainee ha[d] neither confirmed nor denied” … “knowledge of an al-Qaida nuclear device” by September 10, 2008.

Does the fact that he had neither confirmed nor denied the allegation a full 3 years after being captured mean we never asked?

The KSM intelligence is of even sketchier provenance. KSM’s DAB cites WorldNetDaily (!) as the source.

69 Al-Qaida warning- WorldnetDaily.com 17 -Sep-06, Al-Qaida warns Muslims: Time to get out of U.S. Afghan terror commander hints at a big attack on N.Y. and Washington.

Not only should the WND source raise questions, but reading the article reveals there is only one mention of KSM, and it has nothing to do with what he told his interrogators.

And all of this is more suspect considering Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri claimed he told his torturers that Osama bin Laden had a nuclear bomb, but later recanted the claim.

Usama bin Laden having a nuclear bomb. [REDACTED]. Then they used to laugh. Then they used to tell me you need to admit to those information. So I used to invent some of the stuff for them to say Usama bin laden had a, had a nuclear bomb. And they use to laugh and they were very happy. They were extremely happy because of the news. Then after that I told them, listen. He has no bomb. [my emphasis]

Al-Nashiri’s Gitmo file makes no claim he knew anything about al Qaeda and nukes.

In other words, when we tortured prisoners–and all of the detainees to whom this claim can be traced were in CIA custody–we asked them to tell us al Qaeda had nukes.

So I’m guessing the Telegraph’s big headline is not keeping our national security experts up at night.

Update: Titled changed. After all, KSM promised hellstorm, according to WND, if OBL was captured or killed.

Apaches, Seminoles, and al Qaeda

/in , /by

As I noted several weeks ago (and as Carol Rosenberg has reported in depth), the government pissed off the Seminole tribe earlier this year by claiming that Seminoles defending themselves in territory held by the Spanish during the early 19th century fought like al Qaeda (and not, for example, American rebels using guerrilla tactics).

Further, not only was the Seminole belligerency unlawful, but, much like modern-day al Qaeda, the very way in which the Seminoles waged war against U.S. targets itself violated the customs and usages of war.

But it turns out that’s not the only analogy our government has made between Native American tribes defending themselves and al Qaeda. According to Chuck Todd, the code name we used for Osama bin Laden was Geronimo. (h/t zunguzungu)

How did special forces relay the news to commanders that OBL was dead? Code name was “Geronimo”; call came in as “Geronimo is KIA”

Of course, presumably he got that name during the Administration of the grandson of the guy alleged to have stolen Geronimo’s skull as a Skull and Bones prank, not under Obama.

Still, for the sake of the legitimacy of our fight against terrorists–and for the sake of some historical humility and shame–don’t you think it’s time we stop analogizing al Qaeda to tribes that were defending their homeland against our imperialism?

Abu Faraj al-Libi and the Trail to Osama bin Laden

/in , /by

According to reports, we first started tracking the couriers who would ultimately lead us to Osama bin Laden over four years ago.

The stream of information that led to Sunday’s raid began over four years ago, when U.S. intelligence personnel were alerted about two couriers who were working with al Qaeda and had deep connections to top al Qaeda officials. Prisoners in U.S. custody flagged these two couriers as individuals who might have been helping bin Laden, one official said

“One courier in particular had our constant attention,” the official said. He declined to give that courier’s name but said he was a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a “trusted assistant” of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a former senior al Qaeda officer who was captured in 2005.

“Detainees also identified this man as one of the few couriers trusted by bin Laden,” the official said. The U.S. intelligence community uncovered the identity of this courier four years ago, and two years ago, the U.S. discovered the area of Pakistan this courier and his brother were working in.

In August 2010, the intelligence agencies found the exact compound where this courier was living, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The neighborhood is affluent and many retired Pakistani military officials live there.

The reference to Abu Faraj al-Libi is notable in this context for two reasons. He was one of the last High Value Detainees picked up. The Red Cross dates his capture to May 2, 2005 (though he appears to have been held in joint Pakistani-US custody for a time and his Detainee Assessment Brief says he was transferred to US custody on June 6, 2005), and of the HVDs moved to Gitmo in September 2006, he was the last to be picked up.

More interesting, though, are some details from his DAB. In 2003, OBL assigned al-Libi to be “the official messenger” between himself and others in Pakistan. And, apparently at that point, al-Libi moved with his family to Abbottabad, the city where OBL was found.

In July 2003, detainee received a letter from UBL’s designated courier, Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan, requesting detainee take on the responsibility of collecting donations, organizing travel, and distributing funds to families in Pakistan. UBL stated detainee would be the official messenger between UBL and others in Pakistan.12 In mid-2003, detainee moved his family to Abbottabad, PK and worked between Abbottabad and Peshawar.13

His DAB describes al-Libi providing intelligence on al Qaeda’s courier system.

Detainee reported on al-Qaida’s methods for choosing and employing couriers, as well preferred communication means.

And in May 2005 (when the Red Cross says he was captured), al-Libi said he was responsible for facilitating al Qaeda in “settled areas of Pakistan.”

In TD-314/37025-05, detainee stated of early May 2005, he was responsible for facilitation within the settled areas of Pakistan, communication with UBL and external links.

That all sounds suspiciously like the kind of portfolio that might include arranging for a custom-built mansion in Abbottabad for OBL’s family.

None of this means, of course, that al-Libi is the HVD who first IDed the courier who ultimately led to OBL. But it does seem like he was a likely source of that information.

BREAKING: Unusual Hasty Sunday Night Obama Statement

/in , , , /by

This is, to say the least, highly unusual. From the White House:

POTUS to address the nation tonight at 10:30 PM Eastern Time

Now, I have no idea what this is about yet and, somewhat eerily, neither does Marc Ambinder, who almost always has scary good sources for this kind of stuff:

I assume the WH will give the wire services a heads up, so we’ll known by 10:25??

CNN has just announced that it is “national security related”.

Stay tuned and we will update here as it comes down.

UPDATES: It is reportedly NOT Libya. Rumor is Bin Laden.

BIN LADEN REPORTEDLY DEAD AND US HAS BODY

From CBS News:

House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body.

Rumsfeld (of all people) has also said the same.

So, it is quite clear that Bin Laden is the deal and he is confirmed dead. Does that mean the was is over? Can we close Gitmo? Is the AUMF now completed and done? Well, of course not. The long war is NEVER over. This will only be an excuse to go to a higher and more scary DEFCON because of alleged feared reprisals.

From Laura Rozen:

Heard WTOP radio reports suggesting helicopter crash in pakistan and UBL (body or alive?) handed to US forces in Afghanistan