14-06-2010, 03:23 PM
MEMORANDUM
TO
THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON
THE UNITED STATES
THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
_________________________________
Israeli Surveillance of the Future
Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the
September 11 Attacks and Their
Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning:
The Need for a Public Inquiry
________________________________
September 15, 2004
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
1. General Preliminary Conclusions……………………………………………… 2
2. Imperatives and Priorities…………………………………………………………… 4
3. The DEA Report…………………………………………………………………………………………… 5
4. The Israeli DEA Groups……………………………………………………………………… 6
a. Backgrounds in Intelligence, Electronic
Intercept and Communications Units…………………………… 6
b. Connections to Israeli Wiretapping and
Telecommunications Companies…………………………………………… 9
c. Israeli Surveillance of U.S. Government
Offices, Laboratories and Residences and Other
U.S. Strategic Areas………………………………………………………………… 10
d. Spying on the United States……………………………………………… 11
e. Israeli Surveillance of Arab Groups,
the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects…………………… 13
f. Hollywood, Florida: The Operating Base of
The Israeli DEA Groups…………………………………………………………… 14
5. The Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects……………………………… 15
a. Operations in Hollywood, Florida………………………………… 15
b. Timing of Operations of Both Groups in the
Hollywood Area………………………………………………………………………………… 17
i. Hijacker Timelines………………………………………………………… 17
ii. Israeli DEA Groups………………………………………………………… 18
iii. Future Hijackers……………………………………………………………… 18
c. Activities of Both Groups in Oklahoma…………………… 20
d. Dallas: A Probable Training Area for the
Israeli DEA Groups ……………………………………………………………… 23
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6. Reports Concerning the Surveillance Activities of
The Israeli DEA Groups……………………………………………………………………… 25
7. Northeastern New Jersey—Another Vital Center of
Operations for Both Sides……………………………………………………………… 26
a. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Operating
Base of the Israeli New Jersey Group……………………… 26
b. The Leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group Flees
to Israel and becomes an FBI Suspect……………………… 29
c. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Staging Ground
for the Future Hijackers of the Pentagon Plane… 30
d. The FBI’s Conclusion: The Israeli New Jersey
Group were Mossad Intelligence Operatives Spying
on Local Arabs in Hudson and Bergen Counties………… 31
8. Inadequate Israeli Warnings in August 2001……………………… 32
9. The Watchlisting of Khaled al Mihdhar and Nawaf
al Hazmi in August 2001………………………………………………………………………… 36
a. “John”, “Mary”, “Jane” and “Alice”………………………………… 38
b. The Uncertain, Untranslated, Unwitnessed,
Unremembered and Erroneous Identification of
Khallad………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 39
c. William (of Ockham)………………………………………………………………………… 42
10. Why the Israeli Groups?………………………………………………………………………… 43
11. The CIA’s Role and Responsibilities………………………………………… 45
12. Detailed Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………… 49
EXHIBITS AND MAPS
EXHIBIT A—The DEA Report
EXHIBIT B— Members of Israeli Groups and Future Hijackers
and FBI Suspects in Key Towns and Areas
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EXHIBIT C—The October 2001 FBI Suspect List
EXHIBIT D—The May 2002 FBI Suspect List
EXHIBIT E—Mossad Warnings—A Tabular Comparison
MAP 1— Hollywood, Florida Area: Central Area of
Operations of Future Hijackers of the World
Trade Center Planes and Pennsylvania
Plane, and the Israeli DEA Groups, December 2000
to September 2001
MAP 2— Hollywood, Florida: Core of Operations of
the Future Hijackers of the World Trade Center Planes and the Pennsylvania Plane and the Israeli DEA Groups, December 2000 to September 2001
MAP 3— Hudson and Bergen Counties, NJ, New York City
Metropolitan Area: Center of Operations of the
Future Hijackers of the Pentagon Plane and the
Israeli New Jersey Group, March to September 2001
MAP 4— United States, Mid-2000 through August, 2001
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M E M O R A N D U M
September 15, 2004
TO: THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS
UPON THE UNITED STATES
THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the September 11 Attacks and Their
Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning:
The Need for a Public Inquiry________
I am an international corporate lawyer, writing to you today about a matter of public policy that is relevant to the circumstances surrounding, and our preparedness for, the catastrophic attacks on September 11, 2001. I do not know whether the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (the “Commission”) or the Senate and House Committees on Intelligence (the “Committees”) have had the opportunity to consider these issues carefully. If so, I hope this memorandum will be helpful. If not, I respectfully urge them, in accordance with the mandate of the Commission’s charter and in the exercise of the Committees’ responsibilities, to investigate the facts and resolve the questions presented.
I regret that this memorandum comes to the Commission after the publication of its Final Report this past July (the “Commission’s Final Report”). As will become evident, however, it has taken some time to assemble
the facts from the raw data and other information set forth in available governmental and other reports and relevant documents in the public record. Moreover, and in any event, the need to examine and resolve the compelling issues presented here outweighs the mere appearance of completeness by putting a permanent end to the Commission’s work.
It is far more important, to all of us, that the Commission’s work be accurate and complete or, at the very least, that the Commission urge that these questions be explored and resolved by another panel as independent, distinguished and objective as itself. Both the Senate and House Committees should endeavor to explore and resolve these issues as well.
1. General Preliminary Conclusions
This memorandum, on the basis of the information set forth below, the Exhibits hereto and the reports and other documents cited herein, comes to the following general preliminary conclusions. The confirmation or effective rebuttal of these conclusions can be arrived at only by a public inquiry and a thorough examination of all necessary and appropriate witnesses and all relevant documentary and other evidence. A detailed summary of these tentative conclusions is set forth at pages 49 to 52.
I emphasize at the outset that the purpose of this memorandum is not to accuse any individual or individuals (excluding the hijackers themselves), or any company, of any unlawful act or any other act harmful to
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the United States. That will be the task of others only after, and solely if justified by, the determination of all the relevant facts in the course of the public inquiry.--
1. In the months leading up to September 11, 2001, the Israeli DEA Groups1 were spying on the United States.2 They were at the same time keeping Arab groups in our country under surveillance, including the future hijackers and other FBI suspects in the catastrophic attacks of September 11. The base of operations for both the Israeli DEA Groups and the future hijackers of the World Trade Center Planes and the Pennsylvania Plane was in and around Hollywood, Florida.
2. During the same period, the Israeli New Jersey Group was keeping under surveillance Arab groups in Bergen and Hudson Counties, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, including the future hijackers of the Pentagon Plane, whose center of operations was also in Bergen and Hudson Counties. The Israeli New Jersey Group appears to have been aware, before they occurred, that hijackings had been planned by Arab terrorists, as evidenced by their jubilation when the World Trade Center was first struck, by the North Tower Plane. The leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group, who has fled the United States for Israel, is included, along with the names of the hijackers and FBI suspects, on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List.
3. The Israeli Government, through its external security agency, Mossad, warned the United States in August 2001 that an impending catastrophic attack on our soil was being planned by Arab terrorist cells located in the United States. The warnings were the result of the Israeli Groups’ surveillance of the future hijackers in this country.
4. The Mossad warnings were too vague and too late to have enabled the United States to take any action to prevent the imminent attacks at unspecified locations in
1 Capitalized terms used initially in this memorandum without definition have the respective meanings later specified.
2 As shown in this memorandum, the evidence establishing this fact appears to be conclusive.
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the U.S., or to detain the individuals who were planning them.
5. Why the Israeli government decided not to share with us all the critical information they had, and the extent of that information, is a subject for the public inquiry. They may have thought some sort of warning prudent in the event their surveillance activities later became a matter of public knowledge. But any energetic Israeli effort to assist the United States in preventing the attacks would not have served their strategic interest, in view of the disastrous effect those attacks were likely to have on the relationships between the United States and the Arab world. As a leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group said when he was arrested on the afternoon of September 11, “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems.”
6. Whether and to what extent the CIA, though surely not aware of the plans of the future hijackers before the attacks, might have been aware of or condoned the Israeli Groups’ surveillance of Arab groups generally in the United States prior to September 11 is a further question that must be explored in the course of the public inquiry. The CIA’s explanation of why two future hijackers were placed on a Watchlist in August 2001, as set forth in the Commission’s Final Report, is implausible and may have been designed to conceal the Israeli warnings. This consideration, along with other important factors discussed below, opens the door to a thorough investigation of this issue as well.
2. Imperatives and Priorities
It need hardly be observed that the demands of justice and national security, and the rights of the victims and their survivors, require that our first imperative, as a nation, be to find and bring to justice Osama bin Laden and his coadjutors, as well as other members of al Qaeda, and all others who bear responsibility for the horrendous loss of life on that terrible September day. That work is of course the charge of our political,
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intelligence, defense, military and defense establishments and our judiciary.
The Commission’s task is a collateral and subordinate one--to investigate the circumstances surrounding and our preparedness for the September 11 attacks, in the hope that we can prevent one from ever happening again. This is the charge of the Committees as well. This memorandum, therefore, while it naturally stresses, for the benefit of the Commission and the Committees, the present issues relating to surveillance and disclosure, before and at about the time of the attacks, should not be mistaken as any effort to place the blame for the cause of our suffering on anyone but al Qaeda and its members, or to weaken the resolve of our country in finding, capturing and punishing those who have brought so much misery to so many of us.
3. The DEA Report
In June 2001, the Office of Security of the Drug Enforcement Administration (the “DEA”) issued a long report (the “DEA Report”) describing in precise detail the attempts of approximately 125 or more nationals of a foreign country, most posing as art students, “to penetrate several DEA Field Offices in the continental United States.” Many of these individuals also visited the residences of numerous DEA officials and “other agencies’ facilities and the residences of their employees.” The DEA Report states that “these incidents have occurred since at least the beginning of 2000, and have continued to the
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present.” They were ongoing activities in the summer of 2001. A copy of the DEA Report is attached as Exhibit A.
4. The Israeli DEA Groups
Virtually all of the scores of individuals questioned or detained by the DEA and other federal and local law enforcement authorities were citizens of the State of Israel. They were generally organized in groups of eight to 10 people, with a single team leader (the “Israeli DEA Groups”). They usually worked, individually or in pairs, carrying makeshift art portfolios. They visited scores of DEA offices, laboratories and houses or apartments, ostensibly to offer or show the paintings or prints in the portfolios for sale or promotion to DEA personnel.
a. Backgrounds in Intelligence, Electronic Intercept
And Communications Units___________________
While Israel has compulsory military service, many of those questioned by U.S. authorities had served in the military intelligence services or in electronic or communications units of the Israeli army. Thus, for example, Lior Baram3 of Plantation (near Hollywood), Florida, questioned by the DEA on January 22, 2001, had served two years in Israeli intelligence working with classified information; Dilka Borenstein,4 questioned by INS at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (“DFW Airport”) on March 27, 2001, was a “recently discharged” military
3 DEA Report, paragraph 69, p. 20; paragraph 5, p. 48. (the Indexing Section of the DEA Report beginning on p. 48 is separately numbered).
4 DEA Report, paragraph 46, p. 13; paragraph 104, p. 56.
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intelligence officer; Marina Glikman,5 questioned at DFW Airport on or about May 1, 2001, worked for an Israeli software company with expertise in hand-held computer technology and had served as an Israeli military intelligence officer; Tomer Ben Dor, also questioned at DFW Airport on that day,6 worked for an Israeli wiretapping company and had served in an Israeli military unit that was “responsible for” Patriot missile defense.
The DEA’s Office of Security concluded that the Israelis “may well be engaged in organized intelligence gathering.”7 A spokesman for the Immigration & Naturalization Service (the “INS”) stated that dozens of these Israelis were expelled from the United States (from California, the Midwest, Florida and other states). “No one has tallied the total,” he said.8 The expulsions were usually for visa violations.
The leaders of the Israeli DEA Groups included Itay Simon (arrested on April 14, 2001 in Irving, Texas), recently discharged from the Israeli army where he had done classified work for the Israeli military.9 Mr. Simon coordinated recruiting for the groups and served as an intermediary between five individuals in Israel and the U.S. operation.10 Another leader was Michael Calmanovic (also arrested in Irving on that day), who rented a number
5 DEA Report, paragraph 53-56, pp. 16-17; paragraph 120, p. 57.
6 Ibid. Mr. Ben Dor was apparently not an “art salesmen”, but possessed a document relating to these groups. Ms. Glikman was an associate of Mr. Ben Dor (see below).
7 DEA Report, p. 1.
8 Government Tracks Israeli Art Students by Connie Cass (AP), March 9, 2002.
9 DEA Report, paragraph 50, p.14; paragraph 107, p. 56.
10 DEA Report, paragraph 48, p. 12.
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of apartments in Irving, Texas occupied by 25 Israelis.11 Mr. Calmanovic was a recently discharged electronic intercept operator for the Israeli military.12 As stated in the DEA Report, traveling about the U.S. to
sell paintings “seem[ed] not to fit [the] background”13 of many of the individuals in question.
A third principal was Hanan Serfaty (or Sarfati), a team leader residing in Hollywood, Florida. When questioned by the DEA in Tampa, Florida, on March 1, 2001, he had in his possession bank deposit slips amounting to more than $100,000 from December 2000 through the first quarter of 2001, and withdrawal slips for slightly less than that amount during the period. Mr. Serfaty served in the Israeli military between the ages of 18 and 21, but refused to disclose to the DEA his activities between the ages of 21 and 24, including his activities since his U.S. arrival at age 23 in 2000.14 Another was Peer Segalovitz of Tamarac, Florida (about 20 miles west of Hollywood—see MAP 1), an active officer in an Israeli special forces battalion who commanded 80 men in the Golan Heights. He was detained in Orlando on May 3, 2001.15
11 DEA Report, paragraph 49, p 12; paragraph 106, p. 56.
12 DEA Report, paragraph 50, Pages 14-15. As stated in paragraph 50, Mr. Calmanovic also had an address and telephone number in Studio City, California, related to other DEA case files.
13 DEA Report, p. 2.
14 DEA Report, paragraphs 80-81, pp. 24-25; paragraph 39, P. 50.
15 DEA Report, paragraphs 96-100, pp. 29-30; paragraph 66, p. 53. Paragraph 66 of the Indexing Section lists Segalovitz as a former officer in the Israeli Special Forces. Paragraph 97 in the body of the text states that he “has the rank of Lieutenant” and specifies his military ID number.
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b. Connections to Israeli Wiretapping and
Telecommunications Companies__________
Tomer Ben Dor (mentioned above), another Israeli of interest to the DEA, was an employee of Nice-Systems Ltd., an Israeli company specializing in systems and solutions for detecting, locating, monitoring, evaluating and analyzing voice communications and other transmissions from a variety of sources--activities commonly known as wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping. Nice-Systems’ U.S. subsidiary, Nice Systems Inc., is located in Rutherford, New Jersey16, adjacent to East Rutherford where five members of the Israeli New Jersey group were arrested on September 11. When Mr. Ben Dor was interrogated by the INS at the DFW Airport in May 2001, an inspection of his bags revealed a printout containing a reference to a file entitled “DEA Groups.”17
One member of the Israeli DEA Groups, Michal Gal, who was arrested in Irving, Texas,18 was released on a $10,000 cash bond posted by Ophir Baer, an employee of Amdocs, Inc. an Israeli telecommunications firm with operations in the United States. The Amdocs employee described Mr. Gal as a “relative”.
Messrs. Calmanovic and Simon (above) were arrested by the INS for their role in the Israelis’ art-selling activities without the necessary visas. They were
16 Annual Report on Form 20-F of Nice-Systems Ltd., as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 24, 2002.
17 DEA Report, paragraph 54, pp. 16-17.
18 Mr. Gal told the DEA he would be staying in Edgewater, New Jersey, which is near the center of operations of the Israeli New Jersey Group (see MAP 3).
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held on $50,000 bond,19 which was subsequently posted, though the DEA Report does not say by whom. Six members of the Israeli DEA Groups appear to have been using cell telephones that were purchased by a former Israeli vice consul in the United States.20
c. Israeli Surveillance of U.S. Government Offices,
Laboratories and Residences and Other Strategic Areas
During the first five months of 2001 (and including a few calls in 2000), the Israeli DEA Groups went to a total of about 57 DEA locations (28 offices and 29 residences), primarily in the southern United States21, ostensibly offering to sell or solicit an interest in paintings. These included 25 DEA offices and three laboratories: the DEA’s Southwest Laboratory near San Diego (and the residence of its Director),22 the DEA’s Southeast Laboratory in Miami (and the residences of three of its chemists),23 and the DEA’S South Central Laboratory (or property adjacent to it), as well as the residences of one of its chemists and another employee.24 One Israeli asked to visit the house of a DEA employee “to match the frame to his furnishing,” an offer the employee declined.
Members of the Israeli DEA Groups were also discovered taking photographs of a DEA office building and
19 DEA Report, paragraph 50, p. 14.
20 Un Réseau d’Espionnage Israélien a été Démantelé aux Etats-Unis, by Sylvain Cypel, Le Monde, March 2, 2002.
21 The DEA facilities and residences were located in 15 states: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia, and in Washington, D.C.
22 DEA Report, paragraphs 153-54, p. 41.
23 DEA Report, paragraphs 160-64, pages 42-43.
24 DEA Report, paragraphs 165-67, 169, pages 44-45.
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parking lot in Orlando, Florida,25 and on an active runway of the Volk Field Air National Guard Base at Camp Douglas, Wisconsin.26 An Air Force alert was issued from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City concerning possible Israeli intelligence gathering at the base.27 Israeli personnel were also found taking a photograph of the house of a special agent of the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver, Colorado,28 and “diagramming” the inside of an office building of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Lexington, Kentucky.29
d. Spying on the United States
The Israeli DEA Groups were clearly spying on the Drug Enforcement Agency, and thus upon the United States. Many individuals in the DEA Groups may have been trying to do no more than sell paintings (albeit in violation of their visa status and thus unlawfully), but the total number of visits to DEA offices, laboratories and residences precludes any characterization of these efforts as a commonplace sales endeavor.30 The DEA Report
25 DEA Report, paragraph 95, p. 28.
26 DEA Report, paragraph 178, p. 47.
27 DEA Report, paragraph 175, p. 46.
28 DEA Report, paragraph 172, p. 46.
29 DEA Report, paragraph 71, p. 21.
30 I do recall that a student (though in fact, none of the Israelis was a student, as established in the DEA Report) can make a good deal of money selling things on foot. During the summer following my sophomore year at Yale I sold encyclopedias door to door with Maynard Jackson, who drove the “van” in our operation, his black Pontiac convertible. Maynard was at B.U. Law School at the time. Each day I spoke to about 30 people at their doors and managed to make all or part of a sales presentation to about four families. So during the period (about 65 working days over a total of 10 weeks) I spoke to about 1,950 people at the door, made a presentation to about 260 families, and sold 25 to 30 sets. Not once, however, did I make a sale to any federal governmental official, nor, to the best of my recollection (a) did any of our groups, nor (b) did we ever make even a presentation to any such
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speculates that the spying by the Israeli DEA Groups was related to an ongoing ecstasy investigation.31 In the course of an earlier ecstasy investigation, the DEA feared its communications systems had been compromised.32
One of the difficulties in analyzing the DEA Report is that it is reactive. The bulk of it records the activities of the Israeli DEA Groups when they call upon or attempt to infiltrate DEA offices, laboratories or residences. The DEA did not generally seek them out, keep them under surveillance, or otherwise try to find out what they were doing, other than making calls on and photographing or diagramming the facilities of the DEA and other governmental agencies.
When the DEA Report was prepared, however, the DEA and the INS were of course unaware of the extensive activities and operations in the United States of the future September 11 hijackers and their suspected collaborators, whom the Israeli DEA Groups appear to have had in their sites as well. Why the Israeli DEA Groups would be engaged in both activities, where their spying on the DEA would clearly raise suspicions among U.S. law enforcement authorities, is unclear. It may well have been an effective distraction of others from or “cover” for their primary objective. This question is discussed further below at p. 43.
official. Nor, of course, did we ever call upon any federal offices, laboratories or military air bases, or photograph anything at all, not even, to my present dismay, Maynard himself.
31 See DEA Report, p. 1. Peer Segalovitz was asked about and confirmed that he “was aware of Israeli Organized Crime involvement in drug smuggling and weapons smuggling.” DEA Report, paragraph 98, p. 29.
32 Transcript of Fox News Telecast, December 14, 2001.
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e. Israeli Surveillance of Arab Groups, the Future
Hijackers and FBI Suspects_____________________
Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks, commonly known as Mossad, is the Israeli agency responsible for its external security. A few days after September 11, Israeli intelligence officials reported that two senior experts of Mossad had warned the United States in August 2001 that large-scale terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland were imminent. They also informed U.S. officials of the existence of a cell of as many as 200 terrorists preparing the operation.33
One highly placed investigator stated later that fall that there was evidence linking the Israeli DEA Groups to the gathering of intelligence about the September 11 attacks. He refused to disclose the evidence, however, since it was classified. A highly regarded American journal that broadly covers Israeli affairs reported in December 2001 that the Israeli DEA Groups were spying on Islamic networks in the United States linked to Middle East Terrorism.34
There was no implication in these reports that the Israelis were involved in planning for or carrying out the September 11 attacks. Rather, it was suspected that the Israelis gathered advance information about the attacks and decided not to share it. “What investigators are saying is that that warning from Mossad was nonspecific
33The October 3, 2001 FBI Suspect List (the “October 2001 FBI Suspect List” (Exhibit C), contains the names of about 350 suspects.
34 For a fuller account and analysis of these reports, see p. 32.
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and general.” 35
f. Hollywood, Florida: The Operating Base of the
Israeli DEA Groups____________________________
The locus of the most important operations of the Israeli DEA Groups was the area in and around Hollywood, Florida:
“The majority of the incidents have occurred in the southern half of the continental U.S. with the most activity reported in the state of Florida. . . . Hollywood . . . seems to be a central point for these individuals with several having addresses in this area.”36 [Emphasis supplied.]
At the very time the DEA was setting down these words, in June 2001, just two or three months before the September 11 hijackings, 15 of the 19 future hijackers were also living in Hollywood, nine in the town itself and six in surrounding towns (see Exhibit B and MAPS 1 and 2). Hollywood, for months, had been and would continue to be the staging ground for the hijacking of the World Trade Center Planes and the Pennsylvania Plane. Among the Israeli groups, more than 30 lived in the Hollywood area, 10 in Hollywood itself. They were not only spying on the DEA but, in all likelihood, were keeping the future hijackers under surveillance as well. This appears to be the tragic riddle the DEA, unaware of the future hijackers’ existence, was unable to solve.
Hanan Serfaty, stopped and questioned by the DEA as noted above on March 1, 2001, lived in Hollywood.
35ranscript of Fox Television News telecast, December 12, 2001.
T36 DEA Report, p. 1.
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Another leader, Legum Yochai, lived in Miami. One of the five members of the Israeli New Jersey Group arrested on September 11 (see below) lived in Miami Beach. Lior Barram, the former Israeli intelligence officer, though stopped at a DEA facility in Houston (Texas may have been a DEA-Group training area as noted below) lived in Plantation, Florida, about 10 miles west of Hollywood. Peer Segalovitz, the Israeli special forces lieutenant, and his brother lived in Tamarac, just north of Fort Lauderdale. Akyuz Sagiv, a former bodyguard to the Israeli army’s top-ranking general, appears to have lived in Hollywood or in Coral Springs. For the precise location of the relevant towns in the Hollywood area, see MAP 1.
5. The Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects
a. Operations in Hollywood, Florida
It is clear that Hollywood was the core of operations for the future hijackers and their collaborators. All of the hijackers of three of the four aircraft that were commandeered on September 11 lived in Hollywood or its immediate environs in the months leading up to the hijackings.37 These included all of the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston, which crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower (the “North Tower Plane”), who lived in Hollywood itself. They were Mohamed
37 The hijackers of the fourth plane, which crashed into the Pentagon, were based in New Jersey (see p. 26 below).
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Atta (the pilot), Abdulaziz al Omari, Waleed al Shehri, Wail al Shehri and Satam al Suqami.38
Two of the four hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, which crashed in Pennsylvania (the “Pennsylvania Plane”), Ziad Jarrah (the pilot) and Ahmed al Nami, also lived in Hollywood. Two of the five hijackers of United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston, which crashed into the World Trade Center’s South Tower (the “South Tower Plane” and, collectively with the North Tower Plane, the “World Trade Center Planes”), Marwan al Shehhi (the pilot) and Mohand al Shehri, lived in Hollywood as well. The two remaining hijackers on those planes, Fayez Banihammad and Hamza al Ghamdi on the South Tower Plane, and Saeed al Ghamdi and Ahmed al Haznawi in the Pennsylvania plane, lived in Delray Beach.
Khaled al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, overall leaders of the hijackers and hijackers of the Pentagon Plane, had addresses in both Bergen County, New Jersey and in Hollywood and Delray Beach, respectively. Many of the above future hijackers had Hollywood addresses interspersed with or within hundreds yards of the members of the Israeli DEA Groups, as shown on MAP 2.
38 FBI Suspect List, dated May 22, 2002 (the “May 2002 FBI Suspect List”), which is attached as Exhibit D. Both FBI Suspect Lists appear to have been inadvertently released by European Exchange Control authorities, the first by the Finnish authority (Associated Press, October 12, 2001) and the second in Italy by the Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi. Wail al Shehri appears on the October 2001 FBI Suspect list but, presumably mistakenly, not on that of May 2002.
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b. Timing of Operations of Both Groups in the
Hollywood Area____________________________
i. Hijacker Timelines
The Commission has in its possession two “hijackers timelines” which appear to trace the future hijackers’ movements in the periods leading up to September 11. They were compiled by the FBI and are dated November 14 and December 5, 2003.39 The FBI has confirmed that it prepared, edited and declassified the hijackers timelines for the Commission, and that any decision to release them would be the Commission’s alone.40 Thus far, however, the Commission has declined to release them.
There are, nevertheless, a number of hijacker timelines, prepared by individuals or groups, that are generally available. One of those timelines, entitled the Annotated Timeline of the 9/11 Hijackers for Researchers, dated May 13, 2002 (the “Hijacker Timeline”), represents that it has been compiled from public sources and is used as a reference here. It is available at FreeRepublic.com.41 The Hijacker Timeline, though dated in a number of respects (it was issued a year and a half before the FBI’s hijackers timelines), appears generally consistent with publicly available U.S. government reports on the hijackers’ movements, including information from the FBI’s hijackers timelines to the extent discernable from citations in the
39 See the Commission’s Final Report, e.g., note 55 to Chapter 5, p. 43, and note 46 to Chapter 7, p. 519.
40 Telephone conversation with Ms. Whitney Blake of the FBI in August 2004.
41 To obtain the accurate page citations in the Hijacker Timeline, a reader may need to insert page numbers in that document.
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Commission’s footnotes, the Commission’s Staff Statements, the Joint Committee Report, other governmental reports, and accounts in the established press.
ii. Israeli DEA Groups
As to the timing of the operations of the Israelis in Florida, the Israeli DEA Group led by Hanan Sarfaty was stopped in Tampa on March 1, 2001 as noted above, and at that time provided their Hollywood-area addresses to DEA agents.42 Sarfaty said that he had arrived in the United States “approximately” one year earlier but, as noted above, refused to state what he had been doing since that time (or for the two prior years since he had left the army). Another group based in the Hollywood area, led by Peer Segalovitz, was stopped on May 3, 2001, and provided their addresses. Segalovitz had arrived in the United States on January 17, 2001.43
iii. Future Hijackers
As to the hijackers, a number of them had lived in the Hollywood area or elsewhere in Florida well before 2000/2001. Hani Hanjour, the pilot of the Pentagon Plane and a member of the New Jersey hijacker group, had lived in the Hollywood area for a time in 1996 (in Miramar, a few miles southwest of Hollywood (see MAP 1).44 Saeed al Ghamdi had lived in Daytona Beach for several years in the 1990s, and Waleed al Shehri had taken flight lessons there in
42 DEA Report, paragraph 76 ff., p. 24.
43 DEA Report, paragraph 96 ff. p. 28.
44 Hijacker Timeline, p. 6.
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1997.45 Mohamed Atta had also lived in Daytona Beach in the mid-1990s.
In mid-2000, the leaders of the Florida hijackers arrived in Florida to prepare for the hijackings, and were followed in 2001 by their subordinates.46 Thus, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah arrived between May and June 2000. All of them attended flight school in Venice, Florida, not far from Fort Myers where the Hollywood Israeli DEA Groups were later found operating. Although the Israeli DEA Groups were questioned in Fort Myers by DEA agents a few months after the hijackers had left for Hollywood,47 the reactive nature of the DEA Report makes it difficult to track the timing of the Israeli Groups’ movements except when they were spying on the DEA or to the extent they disclosed their movements, as they sometimes did, to DEA or INS agents or other law enforcement authorities.48
Atta and al Shehhi were in the Hollywood area by the end of December 2000, when they took flight training courses in Opa-Locka, about 15 miles southwest of Hollywood.49 Ziad Jarrah took flight training courses the
45 Boston Globe, September 15, 2001.
46 REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, S. REPT. NO. 107- 351 107TH CONGRESS, 2D SESSION H. REPT. NO. 107-792, December 2002 (the “Joint Committee Report”), pp. 135ff. See generally, Daily Telegraph (London), September 20, 2001.
47 DEA Report, paragraphs 90-94, pp. 27-28. See MAP 4.
48 See, e.g. the statements of one of the Israeli DEA Groups as to their movements through Oklahoma at DEA Report, paragraph 52, p. 16.
49 Joint Committee Report, p. 136.
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following month (in January 2001) in Virginia Gardens, about 20 miles south of Hollywood (see MAP 1).50
Atta and al Shehhi settled permanently on the east coast of Florida, somewhere in the Hollywood area, in mid to late February 2001.51 They procured a mailbox address on Sheridan Street in Hollywood some time early in the year.52 Ziad Jarrah returned to Hollywood from abroad in April.53 The pilots’ subordinates arrived in the area at various dates between March and June.
c. Activities of Both Groups in Oklahoma
Oklahoma City and Norman (about 15 miles south of Oklahoma City) were also an important locus of activity for the future hijackers. Mohamed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi had toured the Airman Flight School in Norman at the end of June 2000.54 Zacarias Moussaoui, a suspected potential hijacker, moved to Norman in February 2001 to take flight lessons at Airman. In May Moussaoui had considered joining the future hijackers in Hollywood and inquired about flying lessons at the Pan Am International Flight School in Miami.55 In August 2001, however, he left for the Pan Am flight school in Minnesota, where he raised suspicions and was arrested.56
50 Joint Committee Report, p. 137.
51 Hijacker Timeline, p. 20.
52 Hijacker Timeline, p. 23.
53 The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2001.
54 Hijacker Timeline, p. 64.
55 Hijacker Timeline, p. 25.
56 Hijacker Timeline, p. 37.
20
Five other individuals on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List lived in Norman, including at least two roommates of Moussaoui, Hussein Alattas and Mukkaram Ali.57 Nawaf al Hazmi had also been in Oklahoma. He was, as the Commission and the Committees know, an important leader of the hijackers and an attendee at meetings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (see below). On April 1, 2001 al Hazmi was stopped for speeding on Interstate 40 in western Oklahoma, apparently headed for Oklahoma City and Moussaoui in Norman.58
The Israeli DEA Groups were also active in Oklahoma City during the spring of 2001. On March 28, 2001, the day following a DEA midnight raid near Dallas (described further below), an Israeli DEA Group on their way to Oklahoma City arrived at DFW Airport from Frankfurt. In a scene reminiscent of the keystone cops, and under clandestine DEA and INS surveillance, they tried to avoid being detected as a group and followed. The three arriving Israelis were Yoni Engel, Yotam Dagai and Or Alroei. Alroei was an associate of Michael Calmanovic. Engel was a former Israeli company commander.
The three Israelis were traveling with an American, Eli Rabinovitz. After clearing customs they met with an unidentified woman on the curb and then temporarily split up. Rabinovitz stayed with the woman while Engel, Dagai and Alroei walked down the sidewalk to the next terminal. A van with California plates and registered in the name of a used car auction house pulled up to the curb
57 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 2,5.
58 Hijacker Timeline, pp. 22-23; Die Zeit, October 1, 2004.
21
and, as Dagai ducked into the second terminal, Engel and Alroei got in, and it quickly left. The van returned in a few minutes. Dagai emerged from the terminal and climbed in. The van sped away again, only to return a third time to pick up Rabinovitz before finally leaving the airport.59
On April 4, Engel, Dagai and Alroei were next questioned in St. Louis, where the headquarters of Amdocs, the Israeli communications software company, are located.60 They had visited Oklahoma City at the same time (between April 1 and April 4) Nawaf al Hazmi was there presumably to meet with Moussaoui. They told INS agents that they had traveled to Dallas from New York City and not, as the DEA and INS knew, on a flight from Frankfurt.61
On April 30, 2001, an Air Force alert was issued from Tinker Air Force Base, in Oklahoma City, concerning a "possible intelligence collection effort being conducted by Israeli Art Students."62 On May 17, four Israelis were reported in the Midwest City area (between Oklahoma City and Norman). They stated they were there to promote Israeli art. They were charged with visa violations, and were booked into the Oklahoma City jail at the instance of the INS. Bond was initially set at $25,000 each. All four requested voluntary departure from the United States.63
59 DEA Report, paragraphs 51-2, pp. 15-16.
60 DEA Report, paragraph 43, p. 12.
61 DEA Report, paragraph 52, p. 16.
62 DEA Report, paragraph 175, p. 46.
63 DEA Report, paragraph 176, pp. 46-7.
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d. Dallas: A Probable Training Area for the Israeli
DEA Groups_______________________________________
An unusually large number of Israeli DEA Group members were located in Irving, Texas (near Dallas), an area that does not appear to have been frequented by the future hijackers or by many FBI suspects (see Exhibit B). Texas, however, and in particular Dallas and Irving, appears to have been an important staging area and training ground for the Israeli DEA Groups, given the presence there of (a) key liaisons between senior recruiting personnel in Israel and the Israeli DEA Groups in the United States, (b) DEA and INS surveillance of Israeli DEA Group arrivals at DFW Airport, © the considerable telecommunications sophistication and expertise of DEA Group associates in Dallas and (d) large numbers of Israeli DEA Group personnel, many of whom were expelled from the United States after a midnight raid conducted by the DEA and the INS.
As we have seen, Tomer Ben Dor, stopped by the INS and the DEA at the DFW Airport in May 2001, worked for an Israeli wiretapping company and had with him a computer program referring to “DEA Groups.” He was traveling with Marina Glikman and Zeev Miller, both computer programmers for an Israeli software company. They were both vague and inconsistent about their travel plans.64 Michal Gal, who had an address in Edgewater, New Jersey, the base of the Israeli New Jersey Group and not far from the headquarters of Mr. Ben Dor’s company, had a relationship with Amdocs, another telecommunications company.
64 DEA Report, paragraph 54-5, pp. 16-17.
23
Michael Calmanovic and Itay Simon, both of Dallas and Los Angeles, were the principal links between the Israeli operation in the United States and five Israeli DEA Group recruiters in Israel.65 The DEA and INS conducted a midnight raid on the Israeli DEA Groups’ apartment complex in Irving on the night of March 26-27, 2001, and expelled 13 of their members from the United States on March 31, 2001.66 Their transportation out of the country was arranged by the Israeli Embassy.67
Exhibit B lists the names of members of the Israeli DEA Groups and of the future hijackers and FBI suspects located in Hollywood, Florida (see again MAPS 1 and 2); in Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey (MAP 3); in Oklahoma City/Norman, Oklahoma; in San Diego; in Los Angeles; and in Dallas; all during the period leading up to September 11. The map of the United States attached as MAP 4 shows all of these locations, and illustrates as well the presence of both groups during the period in Wichita, Kansas;68 Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky;69 Atlanta,
65 Statement of an expelled Israeli to Officer Michael L. Bush of the INS on March 31, 2001. DEA Report, paragraph 48, p. 14.
66 DEA Report, paragraphs 39-44, pp. 12-13.
67 DEA Report, paragraph 45, p. 13.
68 DEA Report, paragraph 52, p. 16. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 9, 20.
69 DEA Report, paragraph 63, pp. 18-19; paragraph 71, p. 21. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 7, 20 and 21.
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Georgia;70 Tampa71 and Venice/Fort Myers,72 Florida, and Arlington/Fredericksburg, Virginia.73
6. Reports Concerning the Surveillance Activities of the
Israeli DEA Groups___________________________________
As noted above, almost immediately after September 11, credible reports emerged of Israeli warnings, in August 2001, of an imminent large-scale terrorist attack on the United States. One television network reported in a four-part series in December 2001 that—
“Investigators suspect that the Israeli [DEA Groups] may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are ‘tie-ins.’ But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying ‘evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It’s classified information.’”74
The Forward, the highly respected American journal, at first discounted Fox’s account,75 but in an article three months later reported that—
“[F]ar from pointing to Israeli spying against U.S. government and military facilities . . . the incidents in question [the activities of the Israeli
70 DEA Report, paragraph 2, p. 3; paragraph 125, pp. 35-6; paragraph 132, p. 37. Hijacker Timeline, pp. 3, 19, 20, 33. Commission Final Report, n. 72 to Chapter 7, p. 523, referring to the (unavailable) FBI Hijackers Timeline, dated December 5, 2003.
71 DEA Report, p. 2; paragraphs 76-89, pp. 24-27. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 6,7. Committee Joint Report, p. 143.
72 DEA Report, paragraphs 90-94, pp. 27-28. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 7, 8, 9, 11, 16, 18.
73 DEA Report, paragraphs 138-42, pp. 38-40. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 1, 6, 11.
74 Transcript of Telecast of Fox Television News, December 12, 2001.
75 Israel Calls Fox’s Spy Reports ‘Baseless’, by Marc Perelman, the Forward, December 21, 2001.
25
DEA Groups] appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspect of links to Middle East terrorism. . . . [A]llegations involved . . . Israelis claiming to be art students who had backgrounds in signal interception and ordnance.”76
It is very difficult to believe, based on the existing evidence and the location of their common central operating bases, that these Groups, who were clearly spying on the DEA and the United States, and were keeping under surveillance Islamic groups in the U.S. with links to Middle East terrorism, were not tracking the future hijackers and their collaborators as well.
7. Northeastern New Jersey—Another Vital
Center of Operations for Both Sides__
a. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Operating Base of the
Israeli New Jersey Group______________________________
While the Israeli DEA groups were active in Hollywood and elsewhere in the United States, another group of Israelis (the “Israeli New Jersey Group” and, collectively with the Israeli DEA Groups, the “Israeli Groups”) was operating in Hudson and Bergen Counties in northeastern New Jersey. The Israeli New Jersey Group appears to have been unknown to federal and state law enforcement authorities until September 11, 2001.
On that day, immediately after the first aircraft, the North Tower Plane, crashed into the World Trade Center, a resident of Bergen County, New Jersey, just
76 Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth, Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage, by Marc Perelman and Forward Staff, the Forward March 15, 2002.
26
across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, became alarmed when she saw a group of men celebrating “on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of her apartment building.”77 She wrote down the license number of the van and called the police. The police were told that the men were “posing, dancing and laughing against the background”78 of the disaster, which could be plainly seen across the river. The men were “smiling and exchanging high-fives.”79 An FBI alert was promptly issued:
“Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000 Chevrolet van80 with New Jersey registration with 'Urban Moving Systems' sign on back seen . . . at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center. Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals."81
The men were five Israeli citizens, Sivan Kurzberg (the driver of the van), Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari. The van was finally stopped in East Rutherford, New Jersey at 3:56 P.M. The driver and passengers were arrested by Sergeant Rivelli and
77 Transcript of ABC News telecast, June 21, 2002.
78 Statement of Steven N. Gordon, Esq., counsel for the five members of the group, as reported in Yediot America on November 2, 2001.
79 Ibid.
80 Vans of various makes were also, of course, the common means of transportation for the Israeli DEA Groups, and Chevrolet vans were used by Israeli DEA Groups in New York, Dallas, Chicago and San Diego. DEA Report, paragraph 113, p. 33, paragraph 26, p. 9; paragraph 21, p. 8; and paragraph 119, p. 35, respectively.
81 As quoted in the Bergen (New Jersey) Record, September 12, 2001. The men may have been witnessed celebrating twice, in separate locations, once at the time of the impact of the North Tower Plane and a second time when both towers were burning. Compare the FBI statement with the ABC transcript, supra, n. 72, and the statements of the Israelis’ counsel in Yediot America, November 2, 2001. 27
Officers DeCarlo and Yannacone of the East Rutherford Police Department.
The local police were soon joined by other law enforcement authorities. Sivan Kurzberg was asked several times to come out of the van but, fumbling with a black leather pouch, refused to do so. Officer DeCarlo then forcibly removed him. The FBI agents who arrived on the scene or were otherwise involved included Kevin Donovan, Daniel O’Brien and Robert F. Taylor, Jr. The FBI ultimately took control of the individuals, the evidence in the van, and the investigation.
Sources close to the investigation said they found in the van “maps of the city . . . with certain places highlighted,” adding that “it looked like . . . they knew what was going to happen.”82
Yaron Shmuel lied to the police as to where the men were at the time of the World Trade Center attacks, saying that they were on the West Side Highway in New York (not celebrating across the Hudson in New Jersey). He gave his address as 1345 Drexel Avenue in Miami Beach, Florida (not far from Hollywood). Mr. Ellner was carrying $4,700 in a sock-like sack. Sivan Kurzberg told the police at the time of his arrest--
“We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are [now?] our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”83
82 Bergen (New Jersey) Record, September 12, 2001.
83 The question in brackets is my own. The quotation, and the above related details of the arrest of the five members of the Israeli New Jersey Group, are all as set forth in greater detail in the Preliminary
28
All of the men were handcuffed, placed on the
grass and given Miranda warnings. A sixth member of the Group, Dominik Suter of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, also an Israeli national and the owner of Urban Moving, was later questioned by the FBI at the company’s offices in Weehawken. The FBI searched Urban Moving's premises for several hours, and removed boxes of documents and a dozen computer hard drives.84
b. The Leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group
Flees to Israel and Becomes an FBI Suspect
When the FBI attempted to interview Mr. Suter once more a few days later, he had fled the United States for Israel along with his family.85 According to the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs, Urban Moving’s premises were closed on September 14, 2001. On December 7, 2001 a New Jersey judge allowed the state to seize its property. Early in 2002, the New York Department of Transportation revoked Urban Moving’s license to do business in that state.86
Dominik Suter is included on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List, along with Mohamed Atta and the other hijackers and suspects, under that name and two others he has apparently used, Omit Suter and Omit Levinson.87 He is given two addresses in New Jersey, his apparent residence
and Supplemental Police Reports of the arresting officers of the East Rutherford, New Jersey Police Department, dated September 11, 2001.
84 NJ Locations Searched In Connection With Terror Attacks, Associated Press, September 14, 2001.
85 Transcript of ABC News telecast, June 21, 2002; the Forward, March 15, 2002, op. cit., note 76.
86 Ibid.
87 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pages 17 and 21.
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in Fair Lawn and an address in Jersey City, very close to that of a number of other FBI suspects.88 Though he had fled, Mr. Suter’s name did not appear on the October 2001 FBI Suspect List. This may be because in early October 2001 the FBI was unaware that Urban Moving was operating in the same area as the future hijackers of the Pentagon Plane and visiting hijackers from Florida including Mohamed Atta (see below).
c. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Staging Ground for the
Future Hijackers of the Pentagon Plane_________________
It soon became apparent, however, that Hudson and Bergen Counties were the second most important locus of the future hijackers’ U.S. operation and was the staging ground for the hijacking of the Pentagon Plane. The May 2002 FBI Suspect List shows, unlike its October 2001 predecessor, that all five future hijackers of the Pentagon Plane, Khaled al Mihdhar, Nawaf al Hazmi, Salem al Hazmi, Majed Moqed89 and Hani Hanjour (the pilot) lived or had mailing addresses or were otherwise active in towns closely interspersed, within about a four-mile radius, with the towns of the Israeli New Jersey Group (Weehawken, Jersey City, Fair Lawn and Rutherford). The future hijackers’ towns included Paterson,90 Fort Lee,91 Totowa,92 Hoboken93 and
88 See MAP 3.
89 No address is given on the October 2001 FBI Suspect List for Majed Moqed and his name is omitted, presumably in error, from the May 2002 FBI Suspect List. But Moqed appears to have been known by May 2002 to have lived in the hijackers’ Paterson apartment.
90 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 3, 4, 6, 7, 14. Hijacker Timeline, pp. 22, 27, 30, 41.
91 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 3, 4, 5, 7, 14. Hijacker Timeline, pp. 22, 39.
92 Hijacker Timeline, p. 41
93 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, p. 9.
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Elmwood Park.94 There were also FBI Suspects in Jersey City,95 Harrison,96 Seacaucus and Hackensack.97 See MAP 3.
Atta, al Omari, and Ahmed al Ghamdi, though based in Hollywood and (al Ghamdi) Delray Beach, Florida, were among the hijackers who had addresses in Paterson, Fort Lee and Elmwood Park as well as in South Wayne. Up to six or more of the hijackers appear to have lived on Union Avenue in Paterson at one time or another between March and August 31, 2001.98
d. The FBI’s Conclusion: The Israeli New Jersey Group
were Mossad Intelligence Operatives Spying on Local
Arabs in Hudson and Bergen_Counties________________
There have been a number of press reports in the United States on the Israeli New Jersey Group, most notably in the Forward. In the same article that reported on the Israeli DEA Groups, the Forward states that the nature of the FBI’s review of the case changed after the names of two of the five Israelis appeared on a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. This has been confirmed by a former chief of operations for counter-terrorism with
94 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 5, 7.
95 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 10, 15, 16, 17, 19. Hijacker Timeline, p. 53.
96 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, p. 10.
97 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, p. 7.
98 Hijacker Timeline, p. 22. Commission Final Report, p. 230. The May 2002 FBI Suspect List provides a variety of Union Avenue addresses, including the address specified in the Hijacker Timeline. The Commission’s Final Report (p. 230) does not place any Pentagon Plane hijackers in Paterson until May. Other sources place them there in March, when Hanjour and Salem al Hazmi are said to have signed the lease for the Paterson apartment. Hijacker Timeline, p. 22; Connecticut Post (Bridgeport), March 6, 2002 (preparatory hijacker meeting in March in Fairfield, Connecticut just before the move to Paterson).
31
the CIA.99 At that point, the FBI launched a foreign counter-intelligence investigation. All five of the men underwent polygraph tests, one of them seven times. At the end of that investigation, the FBI concluded that the Israeli New Jersey Group had been conducting a surveillance mission for Mossad, and that Urban Moving served as a Mossad front.100 They further concluded that the Israelis were “spying on local Arabs.”101
8. Inadequate Israeli Warnings in August 2001
As noted above, almost immediately after September 11, reports emerged of Israeli warnings, in August, that major terrorist attacks were imminent. On September 16, 2001 the Daily Telegraph (London) reported that Israeli intelligence officials said that they--
“warned their counterparts in the United States last month that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent. . . .
99 See transcript of ABC News telecast, June 21, 2002.
100 Marc Perelman, op. cit., March 15, 2002. The Forward’s source was a former American intelligence official who said he was regularly briefed on the investigation by two law enforcement officials acting independently.
101 The Forward’s source in the March article also said the five men were released (Suter had fled to Israel) because “they did not know anything about 9/11.” But this statement needs to be weighed in the light of the men’s demeanor and statements, and the statements of local law enforcement officials, on September 11, 2001, the inclusion of Mr. Suter on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List, and the revelations on that List that Hudson and Bergen Counties were a critical center of operations for the future hijackers and FBI suspects as noted above. The FBI was also under pressure from U.S. political figures to release the members of the Israeli New Jersey Group, including Richard Armitage of the State Department and two New York Congressmen. Senior U.S. Officials Join Effort To Free 5 Israelis Held in Brooklyn, Ha'aretz News, October 29, 2001.
32
. . . (T)wo senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation.
They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement."102
The Los Angeles Times reported on September 20, 2001 that a “high-ranking U.S. law enforcement official” confirmed that--
“FBI and CIA officials were advised in August that as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into the United States and planning ‘a major assault on the United States . . . .’
The advisory was passed on by the Mossad. . . . It cautioned that it had picked up indications of a ‘large-scale target’ in the United States and that Americans would be ‘very vulnerable’, the official said.
It is not known whether US authorities thought the warning to be credible, or whether it contained enough details to allow counter-terrorism teams to come up with a response. But the official said the advisory linked the information ‘back to Afghanistan and [exiled Saudi militant] Osama bin Laden.’”103
102 Israeli security issues urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks, by David Wastell in Washington and Philip Jacobson in Jerusalem, Daily Telegraph, September 16, 2001.
103 Officials Told of 'Major Assault' Plans, By Richard A. Serrano and John-Thor Dahlburg, Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2001. The L.A. Times retracted its story the next day, reporting that the CIA (not the source of the story) later flatly denied the statements, and that the Times’s source, the “high-ranking law enforcement official,” had based his account solely on what he read in the newspapers! The L.A. Times retraction referred to a “British newspaper account,” presumably the Daily Telegraph article. The U.S. law enforcement official’s account, however, as quoted above, said that Mossad had warned of a single “large-scale target” and had warned that the Americans would be “very
33
Fox News also reported on May 17, 2002 (and apparently also on September 14, 2001)104 that—
“based on its own intelligence, the Israeli government provided ‘general’ information to the United States in the second week of August that an al Qaeda attack was imminent.”
Neither the Commission in its Final Report or in its Staff Statements nor the Joint Committee Report specifically mentions any such warning from the Israeli government. These Statements and Reports do, however, defer to our intelligence community’s desire to safeguard and maintain the secrecy of its “sources and methods”. These are likely to have included Israeli warnings and the Israelis’ own sources. But in view of the dramatic questions raised by the Israeli Groups’ activities in the United States in the months leading up to September 11, these sources and methods now need to be disclosed.
As shown in the tabular comparison in Exhibit E, the accounts of Mossad’s warnings in August bear the unmistakable imprints of authenticity. Mossad’s warnings were reported by the Daily Telegraph and others right after September 11, well over two years before the Joint Committee’s report and the publication of the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) of August 6, 2001. Yet they bear a
vulnerable.” Neither statement was included in the Daily Telegraph article. The U.S. official’s account also made no specific mention of an “imminent” attack, and none at all of any “strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement,” both reported by the Daily Telegraph.
104 Fox did not specify its source, and I have not been able to locate its piece of the “14th” to which Fox referred in a telecast of December 12, 2001.
34
remarkable similarity to both the Joint Committee’s description of “all-source reporting” and the PDB’s account of “clandestine, foreign government and media reports and recent FBI information.” The key differences, as shown in Exhibit E, are Mossad’s warning that (a) the attacks were imminent, (b) they were to take place on the U.S. mainland, and © 200 terrorists were in the United States to carry them out. Mossad also alone warned of “suspected Iraqi involvement,” though this of course has never been established and is generally considered to be untrue.
That we did receive warnings of this general nature from Mossad seems more than likely. But the real issue, again, is, given the extensive surveillance by the Israeli Groups of U.S. Arab groups and, in all likelihood, of the future hijackers in their central bases of operation and elsewhere in the United States, were not the Israeli Groups, or some of their members, aware of what was going to happen in advance? Is this not dramatically shown by the behavior of the Israeli New Jersey Group the morning of September 11? And if so, did the Israeli government decide not to provide us with enough information to stop them?
As noted in the next section, the Israelis may have given us warning in late August 2001 of the presence in the United States of Khaled al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, resulting in the CIA’s having them placed on the State Department’s Tipoff Watchlist.105 Or this may have been part of the Israeli warnings earlier in August. In
105 As the Commission has noted, this would not in any event have prevented Mihdhar and Hazmi from flying, but would have precluded them from obtaining visas, which they already had (they were both here). Staff Statement No. 2, p. 8.
35
either case, the CIA’s and the Commission’s explanation of how these two future hijackers came to be Watchlisted, which makes no mention of Israeli warnings, is highly confusing and, as we shall see, in the end difficult to believe. Even so, the Israeli warning as to the two men would have come too late, for we now know that they were then or soon hiding in an obscure motel in Maryland, from which they did not emerge until September 11.106
One television documentary cited above (which did not have access to or study in any detail the documents, lists, reports and other information set forth herein, or even any knowledge of the existence of the Israeli New Jersey Group), has put the relevant question bluntly, in the form of a question, an answer and a rhetorical question
“What about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on September 11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?”
“It’s very explosive information, obviously, and there’s a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected none of it n
TO
THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON
THE UNITED STATES
THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
_________________________________
Israeli Surveillance of the Future
Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the
September 11 Attacks and Their
Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning:
The Need for a Public Inquiry
________________________________
September 15, 2004
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
1. General Preliminary Conclusions……………………………………………… 2
2. Imperatives and Priorities…………………………………………………………… 4
3. The DEA Report…………………………………………………………………………………………… 5
4. The Israeli DEA Groups……………………………………………………………………… 6
a. Backgrounds in Intelligence, Electronic
Intercept and Communications Units…………………………… 6
b. Connections to Israeli Wiretapping and
Telecommunications Companies…………………………………………… 9
c. Israeli Surveillance of U.S. Government
Offices, Laboratories and Residences and Other
U.S. Strategic Areas………………………………………………………………… 10
d. Spying on the United States……………………………………………… 11
e. Israeli Surveillance of Arab Groups,
the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects…………………… 13
f. Hollywood, Florida: The Operating Base of
The Israeli DEA Groups…………………………………………………………… 14
5. The Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects……………………………… 15
a. Operations in Hollywood, Florida………………………………… 15
b. Timing of Operations of Both Groups in the
Hollywood Area………………………………………………………………………………… 17
i. Hijacker Timelines………………………………………………………… 17
ii. Israeli DEA Groups………………………………………………………… 18
iii. Future Hijackers……………………………………………………………… 18
c. Activities of Both Groups in Oklahoma…………………… 20
d. Dallas: A Probable Training Area for the
Israeli DEA Groups ……………………………………………………………… 23
i
6. Reports Concerning the Surveillance Activities of
The Israeli DEA Groups……………………………………………………………………… 25
7. Northeastern New Jersey—Another Vital Center of
Operations for Both Sides……………………………………………………………… 26
a. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Operating
Base of the Israeli New Jersey Group……………………… 26
b. The Leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group Flees
to Israel and becomes an FBI Suspect……………………… 29
c. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Staging Ground
for the Future Hijackers of the Pentagon Plane… 30
d. The FBI’s Conclusion: The Israeli New Jersey
Group were Mossad Intelligence Operatives Spying
on Local Arabs in Hudson and Bergen Counties………… 31
8. Inadequate Israeli Warnings in August 2001……………………… 32
9. The Watchlisting of Khaled al Mihdhar and Nawaf
al Hazmi in August 2001………………………………………………………………………… 36
a. “John”, “Mary”, “Jane” and “Alice”………………………………… 38
b. The Uncertain, Untranslated, Unwitnessed,
Unremembered and Erroneous Identification of
Khallad………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 39
c. William (of Ockham)………………………………………………………………………… 42
10. Why the Israeli Groups?………………………………………………………………………… 43
11. The CIA’s Role and Responsibilities………………………………………… 45
12. Detailed Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………… 49
EXHIBITS AND MAPS
EXHIBIT A—The DEA Report
EXHIBIT B— Members of Israeli Groups and Future Hijackers
and FBI Suspects in Key Towns and Areas
ii
EXHIBIT C—The October 2001 FBI Suspect List
EXHIBIT D—The May 2002 FBI Suspect List
EXHIBIT E—Mossad Warnings—A Tabular Comparison
MAP 1— Hollywood, Florida Area: Central Area of
Operations of Future Hijackers of the World
Trade Center Planes and Pennsylvania
Plane, and the Israeli DEA Groups, December 2000
to September 2001
MAP 2— Hollywood, Florida: Core of Operations of
the Future Hijackers of the World Trade Center Planes and the Pennsylvania Plane and the Israeli DEA Groups, December 2000 to September 2001
MAP 3— Hudson and Bergen Counties, NJ, New York City
Metropolitan Area: Center of Operations of the
Future Hijackers of the Pentagon Plane and the
Israeli New Jersey Group, March to September 2001
MAP 4— United States, Mid-2000 through August, 2001
iii
M E M O R A N D U M
September 15, 2004
TO: THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS
UPON THE UNITED STATES
THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the September 11 Attacks and Their
Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning:
The Need for a Public Inquiry________
I am an international corporate lawyer, writing to you today about a matter of public policy that is relevant to the circumstances surrounding, and our preparedness for, the catastrophic attacks on September 11, 2001. I do not know whether the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (the “Commission”) or the Senate and House Committees on Intelligence (the “Committees”) have had the opportunity to consider these issues carefully. If so, I hope this memorandum will be helpful. If not, I respectfully urge them, in accordance with the mandate of the Commission’s charter and in the exercise of the Committees’ responsibilities, to investigate the facts and resolve the questions presented.
I regret that this memorandum comes to the Commission after the publication of its Final Report this past July (the “Commission’s Final Report”). As will become evident, however, it has taken some time to assemble
the facts from the raw data and other information set forth in available governmental and other reports and relevant documents in the public record. Moreover, and in any event, the need to examine and resolve the compelling issues presented here outweighs the mere appearance of completeness by putting a permanent end to the Commission’s work.
It is far more important, to all of us, that the Commission’s work be accurate and complete or, at the very least, that the Commission urge that these questions be explored and resolved by another panel as independent, distinguished and objective as itself. Both the Senate and House Committees should endeavor to explore and resolve these issues as well.
1. General Preliminary Conclusions
This memorandum, on the basis of the information set forth below, the Exhibits hereto and the reports and other documents cited herein, comes to the following general preliminary conclusions. The confirmation or effective rebuttal of these conclusions can be arrived at only by a public inquiry and a thorough examination of all necessary and appropriate witnesses and all relevant documentary and other evidence. A detailed summary of these tentative conclusions is set forth at pages 49 to 52.
I emphasize at the outset that the purpose of this memorandum is not to accuse any individual or individuals (excluding the hijackers themselves), or any company, of any unlawful act or any other act harmful to
2
the United States. That will be the task of others only after, and solely if justified by, the determination of all the relevant facts in the course of the public inquiry.--
1. In the months leading up to September 11, 2001, the Israeli DEA Groups1 were spying on the United States.2 They were at the same time keeping Arab groups in our country under surveillance, including the future hijackers and other FBI suspects in the catastrophic attacks of September 11. The base of operations for both the Israeli DEA Groups and the future hijackers of the World Trade Center Planes and the Pennsylvania Plane was in and around Hollywood, Florida.
2. During the same period, the Israeli New Jersey Group was keeping under surveillance Arab groups in Bergen and Hudson Counties, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, including the future hijackers of the Pentagon Plane, whose center of operations was also in Bergen and Hudson Counties. The Israeli New Jersey Group appears to have been aware, before they occurred, that hijackings had been planned by Arab terrorists, as evidenced by their jubilation when the World Trade Center was first struck, by the North Tower Plane. The leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group, who has fled the United States for Israel, is included, along with the names of the hijackers and FBI suspects, on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List.
3. The Israeli Government, through its external security agency, Mossad, warned the United States in August 2001 that an impending catastrophic attack on our soil was being planned by Arab terrorist cells located in the United States. The warnings were the result of the Israeli Groups’ surveillance of the future hijackers in this country.
4. The Mossad warnings were too vague and too late to have enabled the United States to take any action to prevent the imminent attacks at unspecified locations in
1 Capitalized terms used initially in this memorandum without definition have the respective meanings later specified.
2 As shown in this memorandum, the evidence establishing this fact appears to be conclusive.
3
the U.S., or to detain the individuals who were planning them.
5. Why the Israeli government decided not to share with us all the critical information they had, and the extent of that information, is a subject for the public inquiry. They may have thought some sort of warning prudent in the event their surveillance activities later became a matter of public knowledge. But any energetic Israeli effort to assist the United States in preventing the attacks would not have served their strategic interest, in view of the disastrous effect those attacks were likely to have on the relationships between the United States and the Arab world. As a leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group said when he was arrested on the afternoon of September 11, “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems.”
6. Whether and to what extent the CIA, though surely not aware of the plans of the future hijackers before the attacks, might have been aware of or condoned the Israeli Groups’ surveillance of Arab groups generally in the United States prior to September 11 is a further question that must be explored in the course of the public inquiry. The CIA’s explanation of why two future hijackers were placed on a Watchlist in August 2001, as set forth in the Commission’s Final Report, is implausible and may have been designed to conceal the Israeli warnings. This consideration, along with other important factors discussed below, opens the door to a thorough investigation of this issue as well.
2. Imperatives and Priorities
It need hardly be observed that the demands of justice and national security, and the rights of the victims and their survivors, require that our first imperative, as a nation, be to find and bring to justice Osama bin Laden and his coadjutors, as well as other members of al Qaeda, and all others who bear responsibility for the horrendous loss of life on that terrible September day. That work is of course the charge of our political,
4
intelligence, defense, military and defense establishments and our judiciary.
The Commission’s task is a collateral and subordinate one--to investigate the circumstances surrounding and our preparedness for the September 11 attacks, in the hope that we can prevent one from ever happening again. This is the charge of the Committees as well. This memorandum, therefore, while it naturally stresses, for the benefit of the Commission and the Committees, the present issues relating to surveillance and disclosure, before and at about the time of the attacks, should not be mistaken as any effort to place the blame for the cause of our suffering on anyone but al Qaeda and its members, or to weaken the resolve of our country in finding, capturing and punishing those who have brought so much misery to so many of us.
3. The DEA Report
In June 2001, the Office of Security of the Drug Enforcement Administration (the “DEA”) issued a long report (the “DEA Report”) describing in precise detail the attempts of approximately 125 or more nationals of a foreign country, most posing as art students, “to penetrate several DEA Field Offices in the continental United States.” Many of these individuals also visited the residences of numerous DEA officials and “other agencies’ facilities and the residences of their employees.” The DEA Report states that “these incidents have occurred since at least the beginning of 2000, and have continued to the
5
present.” They were ongoing activities in the summer of 2001. A copy of the DEA Report is attached as Exhibit A.
4. The Israeli DEA Groups
Virtually all of the scores of individuals questioned or detained by the DEA and other federal and local law enforcement authorities were citizens of the State of Israel. They were generally organized in groups of eight to 10 people, with a single team leader (the “Israeli DEA Groups”). They usually worked, individually or in pairs, carrying makeshift art portfolios. They visited scores of DEA offices, laboratories and houses or apartments, ostensibly to offer or show the paintings or prints in the portfolios for sale or promotion to DEA personnel.
a. Backgrounds in Intelligence, Electronic Intercept
And Communications Units___________________
While Israel has compulsory military service, many of those questioned by U.S. authorities had served in the military intelligence services or in electronic or communications units of the Israeli army. Thus, for example, Lior Baram3 of Plantation (near Hollywood), Florida, questioned by the DEA on January 22, 2001, had served two years in Israeli intelligence working with classified information; Dilka Borenstein,4 questioned by INS at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (“DFW Airport”) on March 27, 2001, was a “recently discharged” military
3 DEA Report, paragraph 69, p. 20; paragraph 5, p. 48. (the Indexing Section of the DEA Report beginning on p. 48 is separately numbered).
4 DEA Report, paragraph 46, p. 13; paragraph 104, p. 56.
6
intelligence officer; Marina Glikman,5 questioned at DFW Airport on or about May 1, 2001, worked for an Israeli software company with expertise in hand-held computer technology and had served as an Israeli military intelligence officer; Tomer Ben Dor, also questioned at DFW Airport on that day,6 worked for an Israeli wiretapping company and had served in an Israeli military unit that was “responsible for” Patriot missile defense.
The DEA’s Office of Security concluded that the Israelis “may well be engaged in organized intelligence gathering.”7 A spokesman for the Immigration & Naturalization Service (the “INS”) stated that dozens of these Israelis were expelled from the United States (from California, the Midwest, Florida and other states). “No one has tallied the total,” he said.8 The expulsions were usually for visa violations.
The leaders of the Israeli DEA Groups included Itay Simon (arrested on April 14, 2001 in Irving, Texas), recently discharged from the Israeli army where he had done classified work for the Israeli military.9 Mr. Simon coordinated recruiting for the groups and served as an intermediary between five individuals in Israel and the U.S. operation.10 Another leader was Michael Calmanovic (also arrested in Irving on that day), who rented a number
5 DEA Report, paragraph 53-56, pp. 16-17; paragraph 120, p. 57.
6 Ibid. Mr. Ben Dor was apparently not an “art salesmen”, but possessed a document relating to these groups. Ms. Glikman was an associate of Mr. Ben Dor (see below).
7 DEA Report, p. 1.
8 Government Tracks Israeli Art Students by Connie Cass (AP), March 9, 2002.
9 DEA Report, paragraph 50, p.14; paragraph 107, p. 56.
10 DEA Report, paragraph 48, p. 12.
7
of apartments in Irving, Texas occupied by 25 Israelis.11 Mr. Calmanovic was a recently discharged electronic intercept operator for the Israeli military.12 As stated in the DEA Report, traveling about the U.S. to
sell paintings “seem[ed] not to fit [the] background”13 of many of the individuals in question.
A third principal was Hanan Serfaty (or Sarfati), a team leader residing in Hollywood, Florida. When questioned by the DEA in Tampa, Florida, on March 1, 2001, he had in his possession bank deposit slips amounting to more than $100,000 from December 2000 through the first quarter of 2001, and withdrawal slips for slightly less than that amount during the period. Mr. Serfaty served in the Israeli military between the ages of 18 and 21, but refused to disclose to the DEA his activities between the ages of 21 and 24, including his activities since his U.S. arrival at age 23 in 2000.14 Another was Peer Segalovitz of Tamarac, Florida (about 20 miles west of Hollywood—see MAP 1), an active officer in an Israeli special forces battalion who commanded 80 men in the Golan Heights. He was detained in Orlando on May 3, 2001.15
11 DEA Report, paragraph 49, p 12; paragraph 106, p. 56.
12 DEA Report, paragraph 50, Pages 14-15. As stated in paragraph 50, Mr. Calmanovic also had an address and telephone number in Studio City, California, related to other DEA case files.
13 DEA Report, p. 2.
14 DEA Report, paragraphs 80-81, pp. 24-25; paragraph 39, P. 50.
15 DEA Report, paragraphs 96-100, pp. 29-30; paragraph 66, p. 53. Paragraph 66 of the Indexing Section lists Segalovitz as a former officer in the Israeli Special Forces. Paragraph 97 in the body of the text states that he “has the rank of Lieutenant” and specifies his military ID number.
8
b. Connections to Israeli Wiretapping and
Telecommunications Companies__________
Tomer Ben Dor (mentioned above), another Israeli of interest to the DEA, was an employee of Nice-Systems Ltd., an Israeli company specializing in systems and solutions for detecting, locating, monitoring, evaluating and analyzing voice communications and other transmissions from a variety of sources--activities commonly known as wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping. Nice-Systems’ U.S. subsidiary, Nice Systems Inc., is located in Rutherford, New Jersey16, adjacent to East Rutherford where five members of the Israeli New Jersey group were arrested on September 11. When Mr. Ben Dor was interrogated by the INS at the DFW Airport in May 2001, an inspection of his bags revealed a printout containing a reference to a file entitled “DEA Groups.”17
One member of the Israeli DEA Groups, Michal Gal, who was arrested in Irving, Texas,18 was released on a $10,000 cash bond posted by Ophir Baer, an employee of Amdocs, Inc. an Israeli telecommunications firm with operations in the United States. The Amdocs employee described Mr. Gal as a “relative”.
Messrs. Calmanovic and Simon (above) were arrested by the INS for their role in the Israelis’ art-selling activities without the necessary visas. They were
16 Annual Report on Form 20-F of Nice-Systems Ltd., as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 24, 2002.
17 DEA Report, paragraph 54, pp. 16-17.
18 Mr. Gal told the DEA he would be staying in Edgewater, New Jersey, which is near the center of operations of the Israeli New Jersey Group (see MAP 3).
9
held on $50,000 bond,19 which was subsequently posted, though the DEA Report does not say by whom. Six members of the Israeli DEA Groups appear to have been using cell telephones that were purchased by a former Israeli vice consul in the United States.20
c. Israeli Surveillance of U.S. Government Offices,
Laboratories and Residences and Other Strategic Areas
During the first five months of 2001 (and including a few calls in 2000), the Israeli DEA Groups went to a total of about 57 DEA locations (28 offices and 29 residences), primarily in the southern United States21, ostensibly offering to sell or solicit an interest in paintings. These included 25 DEA offices and three laboratories: the DEA’s Southwest Laboratory near San Diego (and the residence of its Director),22 the DEA’s Southeast Laboratory in Miami (and the residences of three of its chemists),23 and the DEA’S South Central Laboratory (or property adjacent to it), as well as the residences of one of its chemists and another employee.24 One Israeli asked to visit the house of a DEA employee “to match the frame to his furnishing,” an offer the employee declined.
Members of the Israeli DEA Groups were also discovered taking photographs of a DEA office building and
19 DEA Report, paragraph 50, p. 14.
20 Un Réseau d’Espionnage Israélien a été Démantelé aux Etats-Unis, by Sylvain Cypel, Le Monde, March 2, 2002.
21 The DEA facilities and residences were located in 15 states: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia, and in Washington, D.C.
22 DEA Report, paragraphs 153-54, p. 41.
23 DEA Report, paragraphs 160-64, pages 42-43.
24 DEA Report, paragraphs 165-67, 169, pages 44-45.
10
parking lot in Orlando, Florida,25 and on an active runway of the Volk Field Air National Guard Base at Camp Douglas, Wisconsin.26 An Air Force alert was issued from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City concerning possible Israeli intelligence gathering at the base.27 Israeli personnel were also found taking a photograph of the house of a special agent of the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver, Colorado,28 and “diagramming” the inside of an office building of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Lexington, Kentucky.29
d. Spying on the United States
The Israeli DEA Groups were clearly spying on the Drug Enforcement Agency, and thus upon the United States. Many individuals in the DEA Groups may have been trying to do no more than sell paintings (albeit in violation of their visa status and thus unlawfully), but the total number of visits to DEA offices, laboratories and residences precludes any characterization of these efforts as a commonplace sales endeavor.30 The DEA Report
25 DEA Report, paragraph 95, p. 28.
26 DEA Report, paragraph 178, p. 47.
27 DEA Report, paragraph 175, p. 46.
28 DEA Report, paragraph 172, p. 46.
29 DEA Report, paragraph 71, p. 21.
30 I do recall that a student (though in fact, none of the Israelis was a student, as established in the DEA Report) can make a good deal of money selling things on foot. During the summer following my sophomore year at Yale I sold encyclopedias door to door with Maynard Jackson, who drove the “van” in our operation, his black Pontiac convertible. Maynard was at B.U. Law School at the time. Each day I spoke to about 30 people at their doors and managed to make all or part of a sales presentation to about four families. So during the period (about 65 working days over a total of 10 weeks) I spoke to about 1,950 people at the door, made a presentation to about 260 families, and sold 25 to 30 sets. Not once, however, did I make a sale to any federal governmental official, nor, to the best of my recollection (a) did any of our groups, nor (b) did we ever make even a presentation to any such
11
speculates that the spying by the Israeli DEA Groups was related to an ongoing ecstasy investigation.31 In the course of an earlier ecstasy investigation, the DEA feared its communications systems had been compromised.32
One of the difficulties in analyzing the DEA Report is that it is reactive. The bulk of it records the activities of the Israeli DEA Groups when they call upon or attempt to infiltrate DEA offices, laboratories or residences. The DEA did not generally seek them out, keep them under surveillance, or otherwise try to find out what they were doing, other than making calls on and photographing or diagramming the facilities of the DEA and other governmental agencies.
When the DEA Report was prepared, however, the DEA and the INS were of course unaware of the extensive activities and operations in the United States of the future September 11 hijackers and their suspected collaborators, whom the Israeli DEA Groups appear to have had in their sites as well. Why the Israeli DEA Groups would be engaged in both activities, where their spying on the DEA would clearly raise suspicions among U.S. law enforcement authorities, is unclear. It may well have been an effective distraction of others from or “cover” for their primary objective. This question is discussed further below at p. 43.
official. Nor, of course, did we ever call upon any federal offices, laboratories or military air bases, or photograph anything at all, not even, to my present dismay, Maynard himself.
31 See DEA Report, p. 1. Peer Segalovitz was asked about and confirmed that he “was aware of Israeli Organized Crime involvement in drug smuggling and weapons smuggling.” DEA Report, paragraph 98, p. 29.
32 Transcript of Fox News Telecast, December 14, 2001.
12
e. Israeli Surveillance of Arab Groups, the Future
Hijackers and FBI Suspects_____________________
Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks, commonly known as Mossad, is the Israeli agency responsible for its external security. A few days after September 11, Israeli intelligence officials reported that two senior experts of Mossad had warned the United States in August 2001 that large-scale terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland were imminent. They also informed U.S. officials of the existence of a cell of as many as 200 terrorists preparing the operation.33
One highly placed investigator stated later that fall that there was evidence linking the Israeli DEA Groups to the gathering of intelligence about the September 11 attacks. He refused to disclose the evidence, however, since it was classified. A highly regarded American journal that broadly covers Israeli affairs reported in December 2001 that the Israeli DEA Groups were spying on Islamic networks in the United States linked to Middle East Terrorism.34
There was no implication in these reports that the Israelis were involved in planning for or carrying out the September 11 attacks. Rather, it was suspected that the Israelis gathered advance information about the attacks and decided not to share it. “What investigators are saying is that that warning from Mossad was nonspecific
33The October 3, 2001 FBI Suspect List (the “October 2001 FBI Suspect List” (Exhibit C), contains the names of about 350 suspects.
34 For a fuller account and analysis of these reports, see p. 32.
13
and general.” 35
f. Hollywood, Florida: The Operating Base of the
Israeli DEA Groups____________________________
The locus of the most important operations of the Israeli DEA Groups was the area in and around Hollywood, Florida:
“The majority of the incidents have occurred in the southern half of the continental U.S. with the most activity reported in the state of Florida. . . . Hollywood . . . seems to be a central point for these individuals with several having addresses in this area.”36 [Emphasis supplied.]
At the very time the DEA was setting down these words, in June 2001, just two or three months before the September 11 hijackings, 15 of the 19 future hijackers were also living in Hollywood, nine in the town itself and six in surrounding towns (see Exhibit B and MAPS 1 and 2). Hollywood, for months, had been and would continue to be the staging ground for the hijacking of the World Trade Center Planes and the Pennsylvania Plane. Among the Israeli groups, more than 30 lived in the Hollywood area, 10 in Hollywood itself. They were not only spying on the DEA but, in all likelihood, were keeping the future hijackers under surveillance as well. This appears to be the tragic riddle the DEA, unaware of the future hijackers’ existence, was unable to solve.
Hanan Serfaty, stopped and questioned by the DEA as noted above on March 1, 2001, lived in Hollywood.
35ranscript of Fox Television News telecast, December 12, 2001.
T36 DEA Report, p. 1.
14
Another leader, Legum Yochai, lived in Miami. One of the five members of the Israeli New Jersey Group arrested on September 11 (see below) lived in Miami Beach. Lior Barram, the former Israeli intelligence officer, though stopped at a DEA facility in Houston (Texas may have been a DEA-Group training area as noted below) lived in Plantation, Florida, about 10 miles west of Hollywood. Peer Segalovitz, the Israeli special forces lieutenant, and his brother lived in Tamarac, just north of Fort Lauderdale. Akyuz Sagiv, a former bodyguard to the Israeli army’s top-ranking general, appears to have lived in Hollywood or in Coral Springs. For the precise location of the relevant towns in the Hollywood area, see MAP 1.
5. The Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects
a. Operations in Hollywood, Florida
It is clear that Hollywood was the core of operations for the future hijackers and their collaborators. All of the hijackers of three of the four aircraft that were commandeered on September 11 lived in Hollywood or its immediate environs in the months leading up to the hijackings.37 These included all of the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston, which crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower (the “North Tower Plane”), who lived in Hollywood itself. They were Mohamed
37 The hijackers of the fourth plane, which crashed into the Pentagon, were based in New Jersey (see p. 26 below).
15
Atta (the pilot), Abdulaziz al Omari, Waleed al Shehri, Wail al Shehri and Satam al Suqami.38
Two of the four hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, which crashed in Pennsylvania (the “Pennsylvania Plane”), Ziad Jarrah (the pilot) and Ahmed al Nami, also lived in Hollywood. Two of the five hijackers of United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston, which crashed into the World Trade Center’s South Tower (the “South Tower Plane” and, collectively with the North Tower Plane, the “World Trade Center Planes”), Marwan al Shehhi (the pilot) and Mohand al Shehri, lived in Hollywood as well. The two remaining hijackers on those planes, Fayez Banihammad and Hamza al Ghamdi on the South Tower Plane, and Saeed al Ghamdi and Ahmed al Haznawi in the Pennsylvania plane, lived in Delray Beach.
Khaled al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, overall leaders of the hijackers and hijackers of the Pentagon Plane, had addresses in both Bergen County, New Jersey and in Hollywood and Delray Beach, respectively. Many of the above future hijackers had Hollywood addresses interspersed with or within hundreds yards of the members of the Israeli DEA Groups, as shown on MAP 2.
38 FBI Suspect List, dated May 22, 2002 (the “May 2002 FBI Suspect List”), which is attached as Exhibit D. Both FBI Suspect Lists appear to have been inadvertently released by European Exchange Control authorities, the first by the Finnish authority (Associated Press, October 12, 2001) and the second in Italy by the Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi. Wail al Shehri appears on the October 2001 FBI Suspect list but, presumably mistakenly, not on that of May 2002.
16
b. Timing of Operations of Both Groups in the
Hollywood Area____________________________
i. Hijacker Timelines
The Commission has in its possession two “hijackers timelines” which appear to trace the future hijackers’ movements in the periods leading up to September 11. They were compiled by the FBI and are dated November 14 and December 5, 2003.39 The FBI has confirmed that it prepared, edited and declassified the hijackers timelines for the Commission, and that any decision to release them would be the Commission’s alone.40 Thus far, however, the Commission has declined to release them.
There are, nevertheless, a number of hijacker timelines, prepared by individuals or groups, that are generally available. One of those timelines, entitled the Annotated Timeline of the 9/11 Hijackers for Researchers, dated May 13, 2002 (the “Hijacker Timeline”), represents that it has been compiled from public sources and is used as a reference here. It is available at FreeRepublic.com.41 The Hijacker Timeline, though dated in a number of respects (it was issued a year and a half before the FBI’s hijackers timelines), appears generally consistent with publicly available U.S. government reports on the hijackers’ movements, including information from the FBI’s hijackers timelines to the extent discernable from citations in the
39 See the Commission’s Final Report, e.g., note 55 to Chapter 5, p. 43, and note 46 to Chapter 7, p. 519.
40 Telephone conversation with Ms. Whitney Blake of the FBI in August 2004.
41 To obtain the accurate page citations in the Hijacker Timeline, a reader may need to insert page numbers in that document.
17
Commission’s footnotes, the Commission’s Staff Statements, the Joint Committee Report, other governmental reports, and accounts in the established press.
ii. Israeli DEA Groups
As to the timing of the operations of the Israelis in Florida, the Israeli DEA Group led by Hanan Sarfaty was stopped in Tampa on March 1, 2001 as noted above, and at that time provided their Hollywood-area addresses to DEA agents.42 Sarfaty said that he had arrived in the United States “approximately” one year earlier but, as noted above, refused to state what he had been doing since that time (or for the two prior years since he had left the army). Another group based in the Hollywood area, led by Peer Segalovitz, was stopped on May 3, 2001, and provided their addresses. Segalovitz had arrived in the United States on January 17, 2001.43
iii. Future Hijackers
As to the hijackers, a number of them had lived in the Hollywood area or elsewhere in Florida well before 2000/2001. Hani Hanjour, the pilot of the Pentagon Plane and a member of the New Jersey hijacker group, had lived in the Hollywood area for a time in 1996 (in Miramar, a few miles southwest of Hollywood (see MAP 1).44 Saeed al Ghamdi had lived in Daytona Beach for several years in the 1990s, and Waleed al Shehri had taken flight lessons there in
42 DEA Report, paragraph 76 ff., p. 24.
43 DEA Report, paragraph 96 ff. p. 28.
44 Hijacker Timeline, p. 6.
18
1997.45 Mohamed Atta had also lived in Daytona Beach in the mid-1990s.
In mid-2000, the leaders of the Florida hijackers arrived in Florida to prepare for the hijackings, and were followed in 2001 by their subordinates.46 Thus, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah arrived between May and June 2000. All of them attended flight school in Venice, Florida, not far from Fort Myers where the Hollywood Israeli DEA Groups were later found operating. Although the Israeli DEA Groups were questioned in Fort Myers by DEA agents a few months after the hijackers had left for Hollywood,47 the reactive nature of the DEA Report makes it difficult to track the timing of the Israeli Groups’ movements except when they were spying on the DEA or to the extent they disclosed their movements, as they sometimes did, to DEA or INS agents or other law enforcement authorities.48
Atta and al Shehhi were in the Hollywood area by the end of December 2000, when they took flight training courses in Opa-Locka, about 15 miles southwest of Hollywood.49 Ziad Jarrah took flight training courses the
45 Boston Globe, September 15, 2001.
46 REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, S. REPT. NO. 107- 351 107TH CONGRESS, 2D SESSION H. REPT. NO. 107-792, December 2002 (the “Joint Committee Report”), pp. 135ff. See generally, Daily Telegraph (London), September 20, 2001.
47 DEA Report, paragraphs 90-94, pp. 27-28. See MAP 4.
48 See, e.g. the statements of one of the Israeli DEA Groups as to their movements through Oklahoma at DEA Report, paragraph 52, p. 16.
49 Joint Committee Report, p. 136.
19
following month (in January 2001) in Virginia Gardens, about 20 miles south of Hollywood (see MAP 1).50
Atta and al Shehhi settled permanently on the east coast of Florida, somewhere in the Hollywood area, in mid to late February 2001.51 They procured a mailbox address on Sheridan Street in Hollywood some time early in the year.52 Ziad Jarrah returned to Hollywood from abroad in April.53 The pilots’ subordinates arrived in the area at various dates between March and June.
c. Activities of Both Groups in Oklahoma
Oklahoma City and Norman (about 15 miles south of Oklahoma City) were also an important locus of activity for the future hijackers. Mohamed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi had toured the Airman Flight School in Norman at the end of June 2000.54 Zacarias Moussaoui, a suspected potential hijacker, moved to Norman in February 2001 to take flight lessons at Airman. In May Moussaoui had considered joining the future hijackers in Hollywood and inquired about flying lessons at the Pan Am International Flight School in Miami.55 In August 2001, however, he left for the Pan Am flight school in Minnesota, where he raised suspicions and was arrested.56
50 Joint Committee Report, p. 137.
51 Hijacker Timeline, p. 20.
52 Hijacker Timeline, p. 23.
53 The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2001.
54 Hijacker Timeline, p. 64.
55 Hijacker Timeline, p. 25.
56 Hijacker Timeline, p. 37.
20
Five other individuals on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List lived in Norman, including at least two roommates of Moussaoui, Hussein Alattas and Mukkaram Ali.57 Nawaf al Hazmi had also been in Oklahoma. He was, as the Commission and the Committees know, an important leader of the hijackers and an attendee at meetings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (see below). On April 1, 2001 al Hazmi was stopped for speeding on Interstate 40 in western Oklahoma, apparently headed for Oklahoma City and Moussaoui in Norman.58
The Israeli DEA Groups were also active in Oklahoma City during the spring of 2001. On March 28, 2001, the day following a DEA midnight raid near Dallas (described further below), an Israeli DEA Group on their way to Oklahoma City arrived at DFW Airport from Frankfurt. In a scene reminiscent of the keystone cops, and under clandestine DEA and INS surveillance, they tried to avoid being detected as a group and followed. The three arriving Israelis were Yoni Engel, Yotam Dagai and Or Alroei. Alroei was an associate of Michael Calmanovic. Engel was a former Israeli company commander.
The three Israelis were traveling with an American, Eli Rabinovitz. After clearing customs they met with an unidentified woman on the curb and then temporarily split up. Rabinovitz stayed with the woman while Engel, Dagai and Alroei walked down the sidewalk to the next terminal. A van with California plates and registered in the name of a used car auction house pulled up to the curb
57 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 2,5.
58 Hijacker Timeline, pp. 22-23; Die Zeit, October 1, 2004.
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and, as Dagai ducked into the second terminal, Engel and Alroei got in, and it quickly left. The van returned in a few minutes. Dagai emerged from the terminal and climbed in. The van sped away again, only to return a third time to pick up Rabinovitz before finally leaving the airport.59
On April 4, Engel, Dagai and Alroei were next questioned in St. Louis, where the headquarters of Amdocs, the Israeli communications software company, are located.60 They had visited Oklahoma City at the same time (between April 1 and April 4) Nawaf al Hazmi was there presumably to meet with Moussaoui. They told INS agents that they had traveled to Dallas from New York City and not, as the DEA and INS knew, on a flight from Frankfurt.61
On April 30, 2001, an Air Force alert was issued from Tinker Air Force Base, in Oklahoma City, concerning a "possible intelligence collection effort being conducted by Israeli Art Students."62 On May 17, four Israelis were reported in the Midwest City area (between Oklahoma City and Norman). They stated they were there to promote Israeli art. They were charged with visa violations, and were booked into the Oklahoma City jail at the instance of the INS. Bond was initially set at $25,000 each. All four requested voluntary departure from the United States.63
59 DEA Report, paragraphs 51-2, pp. 15-16.
60 DEA Report, paragraph 43, p. 12.
61 DEA Report, paragraph 52, p. 16.
62 DEA Report, paragraph 175, p. 46.
63 DEA Report, paragraph 176, pp. 46-7.
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d. Dallas: A Probable Training Area for the Israeli
DEA Groups_______________________________________
An unusually large number of Israeli DEA Group members were located in Irving, Texas (near Dallas), an area that does not appear to have been frequented by the future hijackers or by many FBI suspects (see Exhibit B). Texas, however, and in particular Dallas and Irving, appears to have been an important staging area and training ground for the Israeli DEA Groups, given the presence there of (a) key liaisons between senior recruiting personnel in Israel and the Israeli DEA Groups in the United States, (b) DEA and INS surveillance of Israeli DEA Group arrivals at DFW Airport, © the considerable telecommunications sophistication and expertise of DEA Group associates in Dallas and (d) large numbers of Israeli DEA Group personnel, many of whom were expelled from the United States after a midnight raid conducted by the DEA and the INS.
As we have seen, Tomer Ben Dor, stopped by the INS and the DEA at the DFW Airport in May 2001, worked for an Israeli wiretapping company and had with him a computer program referring to “DEA Groups.” He was traveling with Marina Glikman and Zeev Miller, both computer programmers for an Israeli software company. They were both vague and inconsistent about their travel plans.64 Michal Gal, who had an address in Edgewater, New Jersey, the base of the Israeli New Jersey Group and not far from the headquarters of Mr. Ben Dor’s company, had a relationship with Amdocs, another telecommunications company.
64 DEA Report, paragraph 54-5, pp. 16-17.
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Michael Calmanovic and Itay Simon, both of Dallas and Los Angeles, were the principal links between the Israeli operation in the United States and five Israeli DEA Group recruiters in Israel.65 The DEA and INS conducted a midnight raid on the Israeli DEA Groups’ apartment complex in Irving on the night of March 26-27, 2001, and expelled 13 of their members from the United States on March 31, 2001.66 Their transportation out of the country was arranged by the Israeli Embassy.67
Exhibit B lists the names of members of the Israeli DEA Groups and of the future hijackers and FBI suspects located in Hollywood, Florida (see again MAPS 1 and 2); in Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey (MAP 3); in Oklahoma City/Norman, Oklahoma; in San Diego; in Los Angeles; and in Dallas; all during the period leading up to September 11. The map of the United States attached as MAP 4 shows all of these locations, and illustrates as well the presence of both groups during the period in Wichita, Kansas;68 Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky;69 Atlanta,
65 Statement of an expelled Israeli to Officer Michael L. Bush of the INS on March 31, 2001. DEA Report, paragraph 48, p. 14.
66 DEA Report, paragraphs 39-44, pp. 12-13.
67 DEA Report, paragraph 45, p. 13.
68 DEA Report, paragraph 52, p. 16. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 9, 20.
69 DEA Report, paragraph 63, pp. 18-19; paragraph 71, p. 21. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 7, 20 and 21.
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Georgia;70 Tampa71 and Venice/Fort Myers,72 Florida, and Arlington/Fredericksburg, Virginia.73
6. Reports Concerning the Surveillance Activities of the
Israeli DEA Groups___________________________________
As noted above, almost immediately after September 11, credible reports emerged of Israeli warnings, in August 2001, of an imminent large-scale terrorist attack on the United States. One television network reported in a four-part series in December 2001 that—
“Investigators suspect that the Israeli [DEA Groups] may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are ‘tie-ins.’ But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying ‘evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It’s classified information.’”74
The Forward, the highly respected American journal, at first discounted Fox’s account,75 but in an article three months later reported that—
“[F]ar from pointing to Israeli spying against U.S. government and military facilities . . . the incidents in question [the activities of the Israeli
70 DEA Report, paragraph 2, p. 3; paragraph 125, pp. 35-6; paragraph 132, p. 37. Hijacker Timeline, pp. 3, 19, 20, 33. Commission Final Report, n. 72 to Chapter 7, p. 523, referring to the (unavailable) FBI Hijackers Timeline, dated December 5, 2003.
71 DEA Report, p. 2; paragraphs 76-89, pp. 24-27. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 6,7. Committee Joint Report, p. 143.
72 DEA Report, paragraphs 90-94, pp. 27-28. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 7, 8, 9, 11, 16, 18.
73 DEA Report, paragraphs 138-42, pp. 38-40. May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 1, 6, 11.
74 Transcript of Telecast of Fox Television News, December 12, 2001.
75 Israel Calls Fox’s Spy Reports ‘Baseless’, by Marc Perelman, the Forward, December 21, 2001.
25
DEA Groups] appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspect of links to Middle East terrorism. . . . [A]llegations involved . . . Israelis claiming to be art students who had backgrounds in signal interception and ordnance.”76
It is very difficult to believe, based on the existing evidence and the location of their common central operating bases, that these Groups, who were clearly spying on the DEA and the United States, and were keeping under surveillance Islamic groups in the U.S. with links to Middle East terrorism, were not tracking the future hijackers and their collaborators as well.
7. Northeastern New Jersey—Another Vital
Center of Operations for Both Sides__
a. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Operating Base of the
Israeli New Jersey Group______________________________
While the Israeli DEA groups were active in Hollywood and elsewhere in the United States, another group of Israelis (the “Israeli New Jersey Group” and, collectively with the Israeli DEA Groups, the “Israeli Groups”) was operating in Hudson and Bergen Counties in northeastern New Jersey. The Israeli New Jersey Group appears to have been unknown to federal and state law enforcement authorities until September 11, 2001.
On that day, immediately after the first aircraft, the North Tower Plane, crashed into the World Trade Center, a resident of Bergen County, New Jersey, just
76 Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth, Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage, by Marc Perelman and Forward Staff, the Forward March 15, 2002.
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across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, became alarmed when she saw a group of men celebrating “on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of her apartment building.”77 She wrote down the license number of the van and called the police. The police were told that the men were “posing, dancing and laughing against the background”78 of the disaster, which could be plainly seen across the river. The men were “smiling and exchanging high-fives.”79 An FBI alert was promptly issued:
“Vehicle possibly related to New York terrorist attack. White, 2000 Chevrolet van80 with New Jersey registration with 'Urban Moving Systems' sign on back seen . . . at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center. Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals."81
The men were five Israeli citizens, Sivan Kurzberg (the driver of the van), Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari. The van was finally stopped in East Rutherford, New Jersey at 3:56 P.M. The driver and passengers were arrested by Sergeant Rivelli and
77 Transcript of ABC News telecast, June 21, 2002.
78 Statement of Steven N. Gordon, Esq., counsel for the five members of the group, as reported in Yediot America on November 2, 2001.
79 Ibid.
80 Vans of various makes were also, of course, the common means of transportation for the Israeli DEA Groups, and Chevrolet vans were used by Israeli DEA Groups in New York, Dallas, Chicago and San Diego. DEA Report, paragraph 113, p. 33, paragraph 26, p. 9; paragraph 21, p. 8; and paragraph 119, p. 35, respectively.
81 As quoted in the Bergen (New Jersey) Record, September 12, 2001. The men may have been witnessed celebrating twice, in separate locations, once at the time of the impact of the North Tower Plane and a second time when both towers were burning. Compare the FBI statement with the ABC transcript, supra, n. 72, and the statements of the Israelis’ counsel in Yediot America, November 2, 2001. 27
Officers DeCarlo and Yannacone of the East Rutherford Police Department.
The local police were soon joined by other law enforcement authorities. Sivan Kurzberg was asked several times to come out of the van but, fumbling with a black leather pouch, refused to do so. Officer DeCarlo then forcibly removed him. The FBI agents who arrived on the scene or were otherwise involved included Kevin Donovan, Daniel O’Brien and Robert F. Taylor, Jr. The FBI ultimately took control of the individuals, the evidence in the van, and the investigation.
Sources close to the investigation said they found in the van “maps of the city . . . with certain places highlighted,” adding that “it looked like . . . they knew what was going to happen.”82
Yaron Shmuel lied to the police as to where the men were at the time of the World Trade Center attacks, saying that they were on the West Side Highway in New York (not celebrating across the Hudson in New Jersey). He gave his address as 1345 Drexel Avenue in Miami Beach, Florida (not far from Hollywood). Mr. Ellner was carrying $4,700 in a sock-like sack. Sivan Kurzberg told the police at the time of his arrest--
“We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are [now?] our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”83
82 Bergen (New Jersey) Record, September 12, 2001.
83 The question in brackets is my own. The quotation, and the above related details of the arrest of the five members of the Israeli New Jersey Group, are all as set forth in greater detail in the Preliminary
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All of the men were handcuffed, placed on the
grass and given Miranda warnings. A sixth member of the Group, Dominik Suter of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, also an Israeli national and the owner of Urban Moving, was later questioned by the FBI at the company’s offices in Weehawken. The FBI searched Urban Moving's premises for several hours, and removed boxes of documents and a dozen computer hard drives.84
b. The Leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group
Flees to Israel and Becomes an FBI Suspect
When the FBI attempted to interview Mr. Suter once more a few days later, he had fled the United States for Israel along with his family.85 According to the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs, Urban Moving’s premises were closed on September 14, 2001. On December 7, 2001 a New Jersey judge allowed the state to seize its property. Early in 2002, the New York Department of Transportation revoked Urban Moving’s license to do business in that state.86
Dominik Suter is included on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List, along with Mohamed Atta and the other hijackers and suspects, under that name and two others he has apparently used, Omit Suter and Omit Levinson.87 He is given two addresses in New Jersey, his apparent residence
and Supplemental Police Reports of the arresting officers of the East Rutherford, New Jersey Police Department, dated September 11, 2001.
84 NJ Locations Searched In Connection With Terror Attacks, Associated Press, September 14, 2001.
85 Transcript of ABC News telecast, June 21, 2002; the Forward, March 15, 2002, op. cit., note 76.
86 Ibid.
87 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pages 17 and 21.
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in Fair Lawn and an address in Jersey City, very close to that of a number of other FBI suspects.88 Though he had fled, Mr. Suter’s name did not appear on the October 2001 FBI Suspect List. This may be because in early October 2001 the FBI was unaware that Urban Moving was operating in the same area as the future hijackers of the Pentagon Plane and visiting hijackers from Florida including Mohamed Atta (see below).
c. Hudson and Bergen Counties: The Staging Ground for the
Future Hijackers of the Pentagon Plane_________________
It soon became apparent, however, that Hudson and Bergen Counties were the second most important locus of the future hijackers’ U.S. operation and was the staging ground for the hijacking of the Pentagon Plane. The May 2002 FBI Suspect List shows, unlike its October 2001 predecessor, that all five future hijackers of the Pentagon Plane, Khaled al Mihdhar, Nawaf al Hazmi, Salem al Hazmi, Majed Moqed89 and Hani Hanjour (the pilot) lived or had mailing addresses or were otherwise active in towns closely interspersed, within about a four-mile radius, with the towns of the Israeli New Jersey Group (Weehawken, Jersey City, Fair Lawn and Rutherford). The future hijackers’ towns included Paterson,90 Fort Lee,91 Totowa,92 Hoboken93 and
88 See MAP 3.
89 No address is given on the October 2001 FBI Suspect List for Majed Moqed and his name is omitted, presumably in error, from the May 2002 FBI Suspect List. But Moqed appears to have been known by May 2002 to have lived in the hijackers’ Paterson apartment.
90 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 3, 4, 6, 7, 14. Hijacker Timeline, pp. 22, 27, 30, 41.
91 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 3, 4, 5, 7, 14. Hijacker Timeline, pp. 22, 39.
92 Hijacker Timeline, p. 41
93 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, p. 9.
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Elmwood Park.94 There were also FBI Suspects in Jersey City,95 Harrison,96 Seacaucus and Hackensack.97 See MAP 3.
Atta, al Omari, and Ahmed al Ghamdi, though based in Hollywood and (al Ghamdi) Delray Beach, Florida, were among the hijackers who had addresses in Paterson, Fort Lee and Elmwood Park as well as in South Wayne. Up to six or more of the hijackers appear to have lived on Union Avenue in Paterson at one time or another between March and August 31, 2001.98
d. The FBI’s Conclusion: The Israeli New Jersey Group
were Mossad Intelligence Operatives Spying on Local
Arabs in Hudson and Bergen_Counties________________
There have been a number of press reports in the United States on the Israeli New Jersey Group, most notably in the Forward. In the same article that reported on the Israeli DEA Groups, the Forward states that the nature of the FBI’s review of the case changed after the names of two of the five Israelis appeared on a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. This has been confirmed by a former chief of operations for counter-terrorism with
94 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 5, 7.
95 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, pp. 10, 15, 16, 17, 19. Hijacker Timeline, p. 53.
96 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, p. 10.
97 May 2002 FBI Suspect List, p. 7.
98 Hijacker Timeline, p. 22. Commission Final Report, p. 230. The May 2002 FBI Suspect List provides a variety of Union Avenue addresses, including the address specified in the Hijacker Timeline. The Commission’s Final Report (p. 230) does not place any Pentagon Plane hijackers in Paterson until May. Other sources place them there in March, when Hanjour and Salem al Hazmi are said to have signed the lease for the Paterson apartment. Hijacker Timeline, p. 22; Connecticut Post (Bridgeport), March 6, 2002 (preparatory hijacker meeting in March in Fairfield, Connecticut just before the move to Paterson).
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the CIA.99 At that point, the FBI launched a foreign counter-intelligence investigation. All five of the men underwent polygraph tests, one of them seven times. At the end of that investigation, the FBI concluded that the Israeli New Jersey Group had been conducting a surveillance mission for Mossad, and that Urban Moving served as a Mossad front.100 They further concluded that the Israelis were “spying on local Arabs.”101
8. Inadequate Israeli Warnings in August 2001
As noted above, almost immediately after September 11, reports emerged of Israeli warnings, in August, that major terrorist attacks were imminent. On September 16, 2001 the Daily Telegraph (London) reported that Israeli intelligence officials said that they--
“warned their counterparts in the United States last month that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent. . . .
99 See transcript of ABC News telecast, June 21, 2002.
100 Marc Perelman, op. cit., March 15, 2002. The Forward’s source was a former American intelligence official who said he was regularly briefed on the investigation by two law enforcement officials acting independently.
101 The Forward’s source in the March article also said the five men were released (Suter had fled to Israel) because “they did not know anything about 9/11.” But this statement needs to be weighed in the light of the men’s demeanor and statements, and the statements of local law enforcement officials, on September 11, 2001, the inclusion of Mr. Suter on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List, and the revelations on that List that Hudson and Bergen Counties were a critical center of operations for the future hijackers and FBI suspects as noted above. The FBI was also under pressure from U.S. political figures to release the members of the Israeli New Jersey Group, including Richard Armitage of the State Department and two New York Congressmen. Senior U.S. Officials Join Effort To Free 5 Israelis Held in Brooklyn, Ha'aretz News, October 29, 2001.
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. . . (T)wo senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation.
They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement."102
The Los Angeles Times reported on September 20, 2001 that a “high-ranking U.S. law enforcement official” confirmed that--
“FBI and CIA officials were advised in August that as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into the United States and planning ‘a major assault on the United States . . . .’
The advisory was passed on by the Mossad. . . . It cautioned that it had picked up indications of a ‘large-scale target’ in the United States and that Americans would be ‘very vulnerable’, the official said.
It is not known whether US authorities thought the warning to be credible, or whether it contained enough details to allow counter-terrorism teams to come up with a response. But the official said the advisory linked the information ‘back to Afghanistan and [exiled Saudi militant] Osama bin Laden.’”103
102 Israeli security issues urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks, by David Wastell in Washington and Philip Jacobson in Jerusalem, Daily Telegraph, September 16, 2001.
103 Officials Told of 'Major Assault' Plans, By Richard A. Serrano and John-Thor Dahlburg, Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2001. The L.A. Times retracted its story the next day, reporting that the CIA (not the source of the story) later flatly denied the statements, and that the Times’s source, the “high-ranking law enforcement official,” had based his account solely on what he read in the newspapers! The L.A. Times retraction referred to a “British newspaper account,” presumably the Daily Telegraph article. The U.S. law enforcement official’s account, however, as quoted above, said that Mossad had warned of a single “large-scale target” and had warned that the Americans would be “very
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Fox News also reported on May 17, 2002 (and apparently also on September 14, 2001)104 that—
“based on its own intelligence, the Israeli government provided ‘general’ information to the United States in the second week of August that an al Qaeda attack was imminent.”
Neither the Commission in its Final Report or in its Staff Statements nor the Joint Committee Report specifically mentions any such warning from the Israeli government. These Statements and Reports do, however, defer to our intelligence community’s desire to safeguard and maintain the secrecy of its “sources and methods”. These are likely to have included Israeli warnings and the Israelis’ own sources. But in view of the dramatic questions raised by the Israeli Groups’ activities in the United States in the months leading up to September 11, these sources and methods now need to be disclosed.
As shown in the tabular comparison in Exhibit E, the accounts of Mossad’s warnings in August bear the unmistakable imprints of authenticity. Mossad’s warnings were reported by the Daily Telegraph and others right after September 11, well over two years before the Joint Committee’s report and the publication of the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) of August 6, 2001. Yet they bear a
vulnerable.” Neither statement was included in the Daily Telegraph article. The U.S. official’s account also made no specific mention of an “imminent” attack, and none at all of any “strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement,” both reported by the Daily Telegraph.
104 Fox did not specify its source, and I have not been able to locate its piece of the “14th” to which Fox referred in a telecast of December 12, 2001.
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remarkable similarity to both the Joint Committee’s description of “all-source reporting” and the PDB’s account of “clandestine, foreign government and media reports and recent FBI information.” The key differences, as shown in Exhibit E, are Mossad’s warning that (a) the attacks were imminent, (b) they were to take place on the U.S. mainland, and © 200 terrorists were in the United States to carry them out. Mossad also alone warned of “suspected Iraqi involvement,” though this of course has never been established and is generally considered to be untrue.
That we did receive warnings of this general nature from Mossad seems more than likely. But the real issue, again, is, given the extensive surveillance by the Israeli Groups of U.S. Arab groups and, in all likelihood, of the future hijackers in their central bases of operation and elsewhere in the United States, were not the Israeli Groups, or some of their members, aware of what was going to happen in advance? Is this not dramatically shown by the behavior of the Israeli New Jersey Group the morning of September 11? And if so, did the Israeli government decide not to provide us with enough information to stop them?
As noted in the next section, the Israelis may have given us warning in late August 2001 of the presence in the United States of Khaled al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, resulting in the CIA’s having them placed on the State Department’s Tipoff Watchlist.105 Or this may have been part of the Israeli warnings earlier in August. In
105 As the Commission has noted, this would not in any event have prevented Mihdhar and Hazmi from flying, but would have precluded them from obtaining visas, which they already had (they were both here). Staff Statement No. 2, p. 8.
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either case, the CIA’s and the Commission’s explanation of how these two future hijackers came to be Watchlisted, which makes no mention of Israeli warnings, is highly confusing and, as we shall see, in the end difficult to believe. Even so, the Israeli warning as to the two men would have come too late, for we now know that they were then or soon hiding in an obscure motel in Maryland, from which they did not emerge until September 11.106
One television documentary cited above (which did not have access to or study in any detail the documents, lists, reports and other information set forth herein, or even any knowledge of the existence of the Israeli New Jersey Group), has put the relevant question bluntly, in the form of a question, an answer and a rhetorical question
“What about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on September 11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?”
“It’s very explosive information, obviously, and there’s a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected none of it n
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.