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The arrest marks the end of a yearlong manhunt for a suspect believed to be one of the few living conspirators in the Sept. 11 plot. It signifies an important victory in the difficult campaign to apprehend key operatives in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network. Even as Americans commemorated the anniversary of the attacks, Binalshibh was arrested by Pakistani police on Wednesday with as many as 10 other suspects, after a three-hour gun-and-grenade battle in which two gunmen. were killed. He is being transferred to a U.S. airbase in Afghanistan, sources said. Details of the arrest were unclear last night, but one intelligence source said that CIA paramilitary units "were nearby" when the raid was carried out. Charged in Germany with more than 3,000 counts of murder for his complicity in the attacks, Binalshibh had hoped to be the 20th hijacker in the plot but was repeatedly rebuffed in attempts to secure a U.S. visa, officials have said. His name has also surfaced in investigations of several other terrorist attacks, including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen and a bombing earlier this year of a synagogue in Tunisia. The Yemeni national roomed with hijacking ringleader Mohamed Atta in Hamburg, and provided crucial financial and logistical support to Atta and other members of the cell who carried out the operation, according to intelligence officials. The U.S. indictment against another alleged Sept. 11 conspirator, Zacarias Moussaoui, names Binalshibh as an "unindicted co-conspirator," and accused him of wiring money to Moussaoui and at least one of the hijackers, Marwan Al-Shehhi. In a previously audiotaped interview with the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television station broadcast Thursday, Binalshibh boasted of his role in helping to organize the Sept. 11 plot and called the attacks "real acts of heroism" that succeeded in part because "the enemy is stupid." Al-Jazeera said it conducted the interview with Binalshibh and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, believed to be a top coordinator of the Sept. 11 attack, in a secret location in Karachi. "He is a very big fish to catch," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism official. "He certainly was the coordinator with Khalid of the 9/11 operation itself, and he might know some of the people who may still be in the United States if we can get him to talk." U.S. sources said Mohammed, one of the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists," was not captured as part of the Karachi raid. Only one other suspected terrorist known to be in U.S. custody, al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaida, surpasses Binalshibh in importance, several officials and observers said. In a separate development, a federal official last night that authorities have issued arrest warrants in Buffalo, N.Y., for five men who are believed to have gone through al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. At least some of the men were in custody, the official said. The men were described as naturalized American citizens, and some or all are of Yemeni descent. They have been living in Lackawanna, a suburb of Buffalo. In Wednesday's raid on a low-rise apartment building in Karachi, which began about 9 a.m. local time, two suspects were killed and one police officer was seriously wounded. Suspects hurled grenades and fired assault rifles at police for three hours. Police seized a satellite phone, a laptop computer, firearms, grenades and other items from the building, according to local press reports. As President Pervez Musharraf has heightened efforts to crack down on militants, Pakistani security forces have engaged in more frequent gun battles with suspected terrorist operatives. Harvey Kushner, a terrorism expert at Long Island University, said the case "shows that there is significant cooperation with intelligence agencies around the world." But he said he would not expect the arrest to affect the second-generation al Qaeda network, which has dispersed to a number of countries. Officials now fear that lower-level and largely independent operatives are planning attacks on their own.
The terror operatives are "much
more spread out now," Kushner said.
Binalshibh grew up in the eastern Yemeni province of Hadramaut, considered
a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. He first entered Hamburg in 1995 with a
phony plea for asylum.
By Peter Finn His capture in Pakistan and subsequent handover to U.S. officials takes investigators to the core of the conspiracy by the al Qaeda terrorist network and offers the possibility of solving many of the outstanding mysteries about how Sept. 11 was planned and executed. It remains unclear if the capture of the 30-year-old Binalshibh was related to his decision to grant an interview to the Arabic-language al-Jazeera TV network, apparently from a hiding place in Pakistan. In the program, broadcast this week, Binalshibh described himself as the "coordinator" of the attacks. "Regarding your question about the issue of coordination," he told the al-Jazeera interviewer, "in brief, it's the issue of connecting the cells to each other, forming a link between these cells and the general command in Afghanistan and determining the priorities and following up on the work of these cells until the conclusion of its work." His statements to the network, including the claim that he has written a 112-page justification for Sept. 11, may provide additional evidence for U.S. authorities to indict him, a U.S. official said. Binalshibh has been named by U.S. prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the French Moroccan who investigators say took Binalshibh's place among the hijackers after Binalshibh was turned down for a visa to travel to the United States. An international arrest warrant under which he was being sought was issued, last year, by German authorities, based on his activities in Germany, where he stands with more 3,000 counts of murder for his role in the attacks. U.S. authorities, however, are unlikely to hand him over to the Germans. Once in German custody, the United States would have great difficulty in extraditing him to face trial, if there was a threat of capital punishment, as is likely in cases relating to Sept. 11. The Germans have refused to hand over evidence for the trial of Moussaoui unless they receive guarantees that it will not be used secure a capital conviction. So a U.S. indictment of Binalshibh, or a military trial, is now likely. Binalshibh was born in Yemen, in the province of Hadramaut, home to many Islamic radicals. In 1995, he stepped off a ship in Hamburg and asked for political asylum, claiming to be a refugee from Sudan who had been jailed following a student demonstration in the capital, Khartoum. His story wasn't believed, but by the time he was formally turned down by asylum officials and ordered deported, in December 1997, he had obtained residency and a student visa, allowing him to stay. He entered a German language program to prepare for college studies, but dropped out, leaving many teachers and students with the impression that he was neither smart nor dedicated. But in Hamburg he met Atta, who was both. In 1998, Binalshibh moved into an apartment with Atta and another student, Said Bahaji, who also is being sought on a German arrest warrant. Binalshibh had wanted to take part in the attacks, investigators believe, but he failed four times to get a U.S. visa. "It was only by luck, really, he wasn't given a visa," said one U.S. official. "Otherwise, he'd have been on one of those planes that went down." Investigators say they have concluded that planning for the Sept. 11 attacks was punctuated by two critical meetings, one in Malaysia in January 2000 and one in Spain in July 2001. Binalshibh is the only person known to be alive who attended both meetings, making him a key potential source of answers to the enduring questions about the plot. These include who initiated it, how the hijackers and flights were selected, and who coordinated the hijackers with Afghanistan and in the United States, Western intelligence officials said. Binalshibh also was a conduit for money sent to the Sept. 11 pilots in the United States as well as Moussaoui, whose exact role remains the subject of debate.
In the now familiar absence of Bush administration engagement, halting progress has been made by the parties on the ground. There have been no major Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis in six weeks, despite several attempts; both the Israeli army and the Palestinian administration claim credit, and both probably had something to do with it. Attempts by Palestinian political and military leaders to change the direction of their self-destructive uprising against Israel, and to force Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to yield most of his power, continue in spite of Mr. Arafat's strong resistance; this week the legislative body of the Palestinian Authority delivered an unprecedented rebuff, forcing the resignation of Mr. Arafat's cabinet. The more moderate Labor Party ministers in Mr. Sharon's cabinet have been trying to negotiate incremental security agreements with the Palestinians, and there are signs of revival in the long-moribund Israeli peace camp.
But Israeli troops occupy six
major West Bank towns and significant parts of the Gaza Strip, imposing
curfews and other restrictions on movement that aid agencies say are
breeding a mounting humanitarian crisis. Israeli forces killed more than a
dozen innocent Palestinian civilians in the past two weeks, including
several children; a hasty official investigation cleared the soldiers of
any wrongdoing. Israeli settlement-building in the territories continues;
Mr. Sharon refuses to rein it in, just as he rejects any discussion of
Palestinian statehood or any negotiations -- even with a post-Arafat
leadership -- about a permanent peace. For his part, Mr. Bush clearly
remains unwilling to do or say anything that would cross Mr. Sharon. That
reluctance largely explains his administration's failure to act on his
broad promises of last June; in the coming months, it could also prove a
serious impediment to building a coalition against Iraq.
By Peter Baker With its veto power, Russia emerged as perhaps the key country on the U.N. Security Council as the Bush administration sought to persuade the international body to issue a new ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. But Russia's threat to launch a strike against Chechen rebel camps across the border in Georgia presented an unexpected challenge for the Bush team. Both sides disavowed any linkage between the two issues. But Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively injected the issue of Georgia by warning of unilateral action against the former Soviet republic this week at the same time Bush was soliciting allies against Iraq. Russian politicians and analysts were discussing a possible Georgia-for-Iraq deal -- Russia would not block Bush's plan to topple Hussein if the Americans step aside in Georgia. "If the U.S. thinks it is possible to conduct military actions against a state because there is suspicion that it is making weapons of mass destruction, likewise Russia as a member of the anti-terrorist coalition can bomb Georgia because there are terrorists on Georgian territory," said Irina Khakamada, a deputy speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. A visiting U.S. diplomat rejected the notion of a direct tradeoff. "I don't see that there really are any quid pro quos to be had, whether with Russia or others," said Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, who was here consulting with Russian leaders about Iraq and other issues. "I think our case is extremely strong and stands on its own merits." Yet a senior U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said Washington was open to hearing Russia's arguments for action against Georgia and suggested that the two countries might find "common interest" on the need for preemptive strikes against terrorists. As one of five permanent Security Council members, Russia could single-handedly block any resolution threatening force. Britain supports the United States, France has moved closer to Bush's position and U.S. diplomats say they believe they can persuade China to at least abstain if Russia sides with the United States. Russia has long complained that Georgia harbors Chechen guerrillas in the Pankisi Gorge. Seizing on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks this week, Putin employed Bush's own logic in announcing that he would authorize military action against Georgia if the tiny, mountainous country does not rid its territory of people he has characterized as terrorists. "He's assuming very cleverly the same framework that Bush is," said Fiona Hill, a Brookings Institution scholar who studies the region. "It's a typical and very clever step for Putin to step into the international spotlight to remind everyone of Russia's own interest. It's basically turning the Bush administration's words back on itself." Many Russian newspapers speculated today on a potential trade-off. "The 'deal' between Bush and Putin -- who traded Saddam Hussein for [Georgian President] Eduard Shevardnadze -- is the talk of the day in the Russian political establishment," said the Vremya Novostei newspaper. The paper quoted ultranationalist parliamentary leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a Hussein supporter, as saying: "Russia will condemn the operation against Iraq but will not take any preventive measures. In return, America will wink at Russia's operation in Georgia." The State Department took "strong exception" on Thursday to any threats by Russia against Georgia and said the United States would "oppose any unilateral military action" there. Tedo Japaridze, the Georgian national security adviser, said he has spoken with Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and was confident that Georgia is "the red line that President Putin and his people cannot trespass. Washington will stand strong next to Georgia." In a telephone interview from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, Japaridze said he had detected no buildup of Russian forces near the border.
Georgian troops engaged in a
firefight in the gorge Thursday night and arrested three men, he said, one
of whom was wounded in the exchange. Georgia has now captured a total of
15 men in Pankisi, mostly local residents described as criminals. Only one
was an Arab suspected of links to international terrorist organizations.
By William Raspberry The Bush administration has been at great pains to make the case that Saddam Hussein is such a threat to the security of the United States as to warrant a unilateral U.S. assault with the implied intention of killing him. But the evidence presented this week consisted almost entirely of the Iraqi dictator's offenses against his own citizens, his neighbors and the United Nations. In addition to the oft-repeated (and, so far as I know, uncontested) allegations that Hussein used chemical weapons against Iran and against Iraq's Kurds, Bush made a detailed case that Hussein repeatedly defied, ignored, violated and otherwise disrespected U.N. resolutions and directives -- a "decade of deception and defiance," he called it. But surely the United Nations knew that already -- and knows that it has the power to invoke military means to enforce its directives. It may be a shame that it has not done so, and the Bush speech may be useful in that regard. What the speech did not offer, though, is any evidence that Hussein is amassing weapons of mass destruction for use against the United States. That, as far as I can understand it, is the charge on which the American-executed death penalty would be based. Without that evidence, the rationale seems to go something like this: Saddam Hussein has "dissed" the United Nations and menaced his neighbors, and if the United Nations is too chicken to do anything about it, then America will. But surely the administration's warmongering hasn't been on behalf of the United Nations (although Bush did take the occasion of his speech to announce America's return to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which it left in 1984). No, we have been led to believe that Hussein is such an imminent threat to us that we dare not wait much longer to take him out. And always the explanation is made in the context of terrorism -- suggesting, though not quite saying, that Iraq is behind the savagery we now know as 9/11. If it were true -- and neither Bush nor anyone else has offered the slimmest reed of evidence that it is -- then I wouldn't be cautioning against an all-out attack on Hussein. Nations, after all, have a duty to protect themselves. But the best Bush could do the other day was to note that an unchecked Saddam Hussein could destabilize the region, which would be bad for us; that Iraq could be stockpiling weapons of mass destruction -- perhaps even getting nearer to producing atomic weapons; and that Iraqis were suspected in a 1993 attempt to "assassinate the emir of Kuwait and a former American president" -- the current president's father. The Clinton administration responded to that attempt, which took place during a visit by the senior Bush to Kuwait, by firing 23 Tomahawk missiles at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence. What else is there? According to our president, this: "Iraq's government openly praised the attacks of September 11. And al Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan are known to be in Iraq." By my lights, the prosecutor's failure to make a convincing case is complete. The case fails diplomatically, because unilateral action of the sort envisioned would weaken the relevant international institutions and complicate our role in the world. It fails militarily -- not because we couldn't stomp Hussein's pitiful army but because we don't seem to have thought through the consequences of "victory," including the likelihood that it wouldn't stop terrorism and that we would be stuck with running Iraq for years to come.
And it fails morally. War is
sometimes necessary. But it needs a firmer basis than that the slimeball
was happy about 9/11 and I'm still sore about Poppy.
What Time Is It? There just isn't time for all the things it's time for You may be thinking that it would have been nice to be alerted back when opinion-makers thought it was okay to wallow in sentiment, so that you could enjoy this opportunity before the time came to put sentiment aside. But there was no such opportunity. Sentiment belongs in a special category, along with partisan differences, of things that exist primarily to be put aside. When sentiment and partisan differences are put aside, there is room for goodwill, reason, common sense and maybe even a small refrigerator where cooler heads can prevail. A check of articles in just four major newspapers during the three weeks or so since Kristoff's declaration indicates that it is time for literally hundreds of different things, in the view of those who write for or are quoted in the news media. A few of these matters do seem time-sensitive. This may actually be an especially good moment to consider leaving a corporate board of directors or to discuss with a child what he or she is willing to eat for lunch at school. But most of the things it is said to be time for are more like democracy in Pakistan or reviving urban rivers: It is time for them only in the sense that it is never not time for them. The dean of Stanford Law School, for example, says "it is time" for America "to hold true to its principles." Was there a time, in her view, when America should not have held true to its principles? By contrast not everyone will agree with the letter writer to the Wall Street Journal who says, "It is time to bring the hierarchy in Rome to its knees to beg forgiveness from the rest of the world for its crimes against humanity." But our view on this subject is unlikely to turn on what time it is. It may be logically pointless to insist that it's time for something you never think it's not time for, but the "time for" conceit serves various rhetorical purposes. It suggests that you are open-minded and deliberative. You are not saying that your opinion is always and obviously correct. You are saying that you have considered the various options and only now have reached your conclusion, which itself is only tentative and applicable at this point in time. "It is time to concede that politicians will never understand" the world's major conflicts, writes a Times culture critic, who evidently thinks he does understand them. This might seem arrogant, but "it is time" suggests that he decided only lately and reluctantly that his view of geopolitics is superior to that of the politicians. That word "concede" is an especially elegant touch, though one may wonder who forced him to concede the superiority of his own opinion. "It is time" gives you the credibility of a convert. You are not one of those folks who have always believed unquestioningly that Jews and Christians should "bury old suspicions and fears." Until now, you did not think that Americans should "practice what we preach" -- or at least you did not feel strongly about it. But now, "it is time." Your opinion on this subject is fresh and strong. Third, it creates a sense of urgency. Not merely do you hold a particular opinion but this is the very moment when your view of things ought to prevail. Yesterday would have been too soon and tomorrow may be too late. A strong sense of urgency can even help to disguise a certain flabbiness in the opinion itself. According to a Washington Post op-ed piece, "now is the time to create a Commission on Privacy, Personal Liberty and Homeland Security." A commission to study the matter is just about the lamest thing you can call for on any subject. But at least "it is time" gives an illusion of vitality. But where will we find the time for all the things it is time for? Fear not. In recent weeks' newspapers, the list of things it is not or no longer time for is almost as long. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder says the time for "checkbook diplomacy" is over. Dear Abby says this is no time for feuding -- though she also says it is time to face reality, which for most of us will eat up more time than we save by eschewing feuds. A Los Angeles Times economic correspondent says it is time for Americans to "drop their infatuation with unfettered markets," while a half-dozen others add that it is not the time to raise taxes on business. As if, in their view, it ever could be that time.
With any luck, the time you
spend doing the things it is time to start doing and the time you save by
not doing things it is time to stop doing ought to be roughly equal. So
please continue to do everything the media tell you to do.
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U.S. Arrests Al Qaeda Cell In NY
The FBI has arrested what
appears to be an active al Qaeda cell inside the United States, reports
CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart in an exclusive report. Agents detained
five men in a Buffalo, N.Y. surburb - all graduates of Osama Bin Laden's
al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan.
Authorities are also looking for possibly two other
men overseas who were the group's handlers. Another member of the cell has
been turned over to the United States by a foreign power.
In a separate arrest across the ocean, Ramzi
Binalshibh, a high-profile fugitive al Qaeda member who is believed to
have trained with the 9/11 hijackers, was captured in Pakistan nearly a
year after he became one of America's top terror targets, U.S. officials
said.
The officials, who spoke only on condition of
anonymity, said Binalshibh was captured earlier this week in a joint raid
by Pakistani forces and U.S. intelligence officers in the southern coastal
city of Karachi. The raid ended in a deadly shootout.
Sources tell CBS News the discovery of the New
York-based cell -- and a recent spike in their overseas and internal
communications -- was largely responsible for President Bush deciding to
go to alert Condition Orange earlier this week. It is not known whether
the cell had identified a specific target in the United States, or how
close they were to acting.
All of the Buffalo suspects are U.S. citizens of
Yemini descent. Four were born in the U.S, while the fifth was
naturalized. All live within a block of each other in a Buffalo surburb
known as Lackawanna. And all attended the same mosque. The cell's
ringleader, also a U.S. citizen of Yemini background, is believed to be in
Yemen and outside of U.S. reach for the moment.
The five Buffalo suspects will apparently be charged
with providing material support and resources to terrorists. This
apparently follows a debate within the White House itself over whether to
treat the men as criminal defendants, or as nonmilitary combatants with no
charges and no access to an attorney.
Sources say the men attended Al Qaeda camps prior to
9/11 and then returned to the United States. There is no indication they
had any support role in that attack, or even had fore knowledge it would
take place.
One senior government official said one of the men
arrested in Buffalo is linked to Omar al-Farouq, a senior al Qaeda figure
captured in Asia this summer, who has provided his interrogators specific
information suggesting that terror cells in the region were planning
attacks on U.S. facilities, the sources said.
A senior government official, speaking on condition
of anonymity, said the Justice Department plans to charge the men with
providing material support and resources to terrorists. In a separate
development, a suspected organizer of the Sept. 11 attacks was captured in
Pakistan, U.S. officials said Friday. U.S. officials say the
newly-detained suspect, Binalshibh, belonged to a Hamburg-based cell led
by the late Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian suspected of leading the Sept. 11
hijackers.
Binalshibh, 30, was born in Yemen. He was being sought by the German
government for his role in the Sept. 11 attacks. The arrest of Binalshibh
was a major coup for U.S. authorities who have searched for him for
months. Officials said he was not wounded during the capture.
Before Sept. 11, Binalshibh was frustrated in his
attempts to receive a visa to enter the United States in 2000, where, U.S.
officials allege, he planned to join the other 19 hijackers. Instead, he
provided financial support to the other hijackers, officials said.
He is considered an aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,
believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings that left
nearly 3,000 dead, officials said. Mohammed is still at large.
To catch him, police commandos fought a pitched
battle with al Qaeda suspects holed up in an apartment Wednesday in
Karachi, with combat spilling out onto adjoining rooftops, officials said.
They said that two suspects were killed and several more captured in the
fighting, as Pakistan stepped up pressure on the remnants of the terrorist
movement a year after it made its mark on the world.
At least six officers were wounded when police
stormed the top-floor apartment and the rooftop where the gunmen held out
against hundreds of troops in the street and on the roofs of nearby
apartment blocks, they said. Two of the wounded were reported in critical
condition.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told CNN in an
interview Friday that one Egyptian, one Saudi and eight Yemenis were
captured in the raid. U.S. personnel were not hurt in the raid, American
officials said. According to the U.S. grand jury indictment of Zacarias
Moussaoui, an alleged conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, Binalshibh
applied four times for a visa to enter the United States from May to
October 2000, but was rebuffed each time. After being denied a visa for
the third time, Binalshibh allegedly began funneling money to associates
inside the United States. He wired money to Moussaoui, to at least two
hijackers and to a Florida flight school at which one of the hijackers was
training, the indictment said. Authorities believe Binalshibh fled Germany
for Pakistan before Sept. 11. German authorities had issued an
international arrest warrant for Binalshibh, whose whereabouts until now
were unknown.
A correspondent for the pan-Arab satellite station
Al-Jazeera claimed to have interviewed Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed, at a secret location in Pakistan. The men admitted being central
figures in the Sept. 11 plot, and claimed the U.S. Congress had been
another target that day. In Thursday's broadcast, al-Jazeera aired audio
excerpts of the interview, in which two male voices attributed to Mohammed
and Binalshibh revealed details about the buildup to the Sept. 11 attacks.
The voice purported to be Binalshibh's said the hijackers were instructed
to take over the planes 15 minutes after takeoff. "That was the best time,
and they were very brave," he said.
Two other members of the Hamburg cell, Marwan al-Shehhi
and Ziad Jarrah, died in the suicide hijackings. Two additional members of
the Hamburg cell did not take part in the hijackings and are still at
large.
He also appeared in a videotape, released by the
Justice Department several months ago, that was recovered by U.S. forces
in Afghanistan at the home of al Qaeda's slain military chief, Mohammed
Atef.
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Sept. 11 Planner
Arrested; Suspected Terror Cell Busted in Buffalo
FoxNews
NEW YORK — In a double whammy on the war on
terror, U.S. authorities in Pakistan arrested a man suspected to be a
major planner of the Sept. 11 attacks and also arrested five members of a
suspected terror cell near Buffalo, N.Y.
One member of the homegrown cell was linked to intelligence that also
prompted the Justice Department to issue a higher alert earlier this week,
officials said.
Officials said Ramzi Binalshibh, suspected to be a major planner of Sept.
11, was arrested in Pakistan earlier this week and was being held in U.S.
custody.Binalshibh is one of the so-called "20th hijackers" who tried to
take part in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington but
had problems acquiring a U.S. visa. He was captured Wednesday in a joint
raid by Pakistani forces and U.S. intelligence officers in southern
coastal city of Karachi. The raid ended in a deadly shootout.
In a recent interview with the Arabic satellite news network Al-Jazeera, Binalshibh bragged that he had participated in the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Binalshibh's roommate, Mohammed
Atta, was one of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11, which
crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. U.S. officials say
Binalshibh was also a member of a Hamburg-based cell led by Atta. Before
Sept. 11, Binalshibh was frustrated in his attempts to receive a visa to
enter the United States in 2000. Instead, U.S. officials allege, he
provided financial support to the other 19 hijackers. Separately,
officials said five men of Yemeni descent, most believed to American
citizens, were arrested in Lackawanna, outside Buffalo, on suspicions they
were operating as a terrorist cell on U.S. soil.
The officials said the men were
on U.S. soil for years and lived just a few blocks from each other, but
were discovered through recent investigation and intelligence suggesting
they were part of a terrorist cell. The evidence included a recent spike
in communications with suspected terrorist locations overseas, and some
evidence of attendance at a terror training camp linked to Usama bin
Laden, the officials said.
The officials said, however, there was no evidence the men were in
any stages of launching a terrorist attack. Officials declined to describe
many of the details of the case, saying it was sealed. The arrests will be
announced by the Justice Department at a news conference Saturday, a
senior government official said, on condition of anonymity. The source
said the Justice Department plans to charge the men in the Buffalo area
capture with providing material support and resources to terrorists.
U.S. officials said the discovery of the cell was connected to information
that also prompted the Bush administration to raise America's terror alert
to "code orange" -- the second highest -- on the eve of the Sept. 11
anniversary. One senior government official said one of the men arrested
in Buffalo is linked to Omar al-Farouq, a senior Al Qaeda figure captured
in Asia this summer, who has provided his interrogators specific
information suggesting that terror cells in the region were planning
attacks on U.S. facilities, the sources said.
The official did not say how the
two were associated. The official said the information provided by Farouq
that led to the higher alert does not stop with the five men arrested in
Buffalo. "There are other reasons we're at orange," the official said,
without elaborating. Binalshibh's capture is a major accomplishment for
the United States. Binalshibh, who has alluded authorities for months, was
not injured during his arrest.
To catch him, police commandos fought a pitched battle with Al
Qaeda suspects holed up in an apartment Wednesday, with combat spilling
out onto adjoining rooftops, officials said. They said that two suspects
were killed and five captured in the fighting, as Pakistan stepped up
pressure on the remnants of the terrorist movement a year after it made
its mark on the world.
Six officers were wounded when police stormed the top-floor apartment and the rooftop where the gunmen held out against hundreds of troops in the street and on the roofs of nearby apartment blocks, they said. Two of the wounded were reported in critical condition.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told a news program in an interview Friday that one Egyptian, one Saudi and eight Yemenis were captured in the raid.
U.S. personnel were not hurt in
the raid, officials said.
Binalshibh, 30, was born in Yemen. He is being sought by the German
government for his role in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Arab satellite
network Al-Jazeera ran a taped interview with Binalshibh Thursday, in
which he said he helped coordinate the attacks. Also interviewed was
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom U.S. counterterrorism officials say
masterminded the strikes. He also appeared in a videotape recovered by
U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the home of Al Qaeda's slain military chief,
Mohammed Atef.
According to the U.S. grand jury indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui,
an alleged conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, Binalshibh applied four
times for a visa to enter the United States from May to October 2000, but
was rebuffed each time. After being denied a visa for the third time,
Binalshibh allegedly began funneling money to associates inside the United
States. He wired money to Moussaoui, to at least two hijackers and to a
Florida flight school at which one of the hijackers was training, the
indictment said. Authorities believe Binalshibh fled Germany for Pakistan
before Sept. 11. German authorities had issued an international arrest
warrant for Binalshibh, whose whereabouts until now were unknown.
A correspondent for the pan-Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera
claimed to have interviewed Binalshibh and another Sept. 11 fugitive,
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, at a secret location in Pakistan. The men admitted
being central figures in the Sept. 11 plot, and claimed the U.S. Congress
had been another target that day. In Thursday's broadcast, Al-Jazeera
aired audio excerpts of the interview, in which two male voices attributed
to Mohammed and Binalshibh revealed details about the buildup to the Sept.
11 attacks. The voice purported to be Binalshibh's said the hijackers were
instructed to take over the planes 15 minutes after takeoff. "That was the
best time, and they were very brave," he said. Two other members of the
Hamburg cell, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, died in the suicide
hijackings. Two other members of the Hamburg cell did not take part in the
hijackings and are still at large.
Fox News' Carl Cameron and The Associated Press contributed to this
report.
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Official: Terrorists Met in Amsterdam
By Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM -- A group of al-Qaida terrorists, including two of the
pilots who flew into the World Trade Center, met in Amsterdam in 1999, a
German security official said Friday. The official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, said al-Qaida members met twice in the Netherlands while
attending "Islamic seminars."
The meeting in mid-June 1999 was attended by pilots Mohamed Atta
and Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ramsi Binalshibh -- the man who this week
claimed on Arabic satellite network al-Jazeera to have coordinated the
Sept. 11 attacks. Mounir El Motassadeq, the only person under arrest in
Germany for direct involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, was also present.
The Dutch Internal Security Service declined to comment, and Dutch
prosecutors investigating other al-Qaida operations in the Netherlands
said they were unaware of the meeting. German prosecutors, however, had
confirmed that at least one member of the Hamburg al-Qaida cell visited
the country. At a news conference Aug. 29, German prosecutor Kay Nehm said
El Motassadeq embraced Islamic fundamentalism after visiting the
Netherlands. Nehm said the first seminar was held in Eindhoven in early
1999, the second in Amsterdam in mid-1999 -- apparently the same seminar
where, according to the source, they met with Binalshibh.
Dutch daily newspaper De Telegraaf reported Friday that the group
used a conference on "Muslim Puritanism" held at an unidentified Amsterdam
mosque as a cover for their meeting.
A second Dutch paper, the Eindhoven Dagblad, reported Thursday that
El Motassadeq also visited Eindhoven in the fall of 1999 and again in
2001. Both papers cited unidentified members of the Internal Security
Service. The German source couldn't confirm either paper's report.
Fourteen alleged terrorists have been arrested in the Netherlands
since Sept. 11, 2001, and are awaiting trial.
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Why wars don't stop terrorism
By Dahlia Lithwick
I have received mail this week from readers objecting to my recent contention that the United States is not at war. There are two main strands to this debate: Are we at war, and should we be? The first is a matter of law: Can we be at war without a congressional declaration? Is war a subjective status (as in, "hmmm, sure feels like a war out there today") or is it a formal, o