Gordon Thomas's Report On Advance Warnings Of 9/11 Attacks

The report below was published 21 May 2002 by the GLOBE-INTEL web site run by Gordon Thomas.

The URL of the 21 May 2002 report below by GLOBE-INTEL was http://www.gordonthomas.ie/104.html at the time of publication. The report is, however, no longer available at that address on the GLOBE-INTEL site. A mhtl copy downloaded from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (archive date Jun 15, 2007) is available here.

The Daily Telegraph has separately reported that Israeli intelligence had visited the CIA in August 2001 to warn of imminent terrorist attacks on America. An extract of this report is provided at the bottom of this page. A full copy of the GLOBE-INTEL report is also provided below.

More information about the warnings the CIA received from the Israelis and Russians is available here.

"Mossad chiefs insist the Israeli spy agency was tracking Osama Bin-Laden's terrorists in America before September 11 and that that the information was passed on to the CIA on Five separate occasions before the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon. As late as August 24, less than two weeks before the attacks, a Mossad warning, confirmed by German intelligence, BND, said that 'terrorists plan to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture.' The warning alert was passed to the CIA. The warning was also passed to MI6. The agency made its own checks and also informed the CIA. Frustrated by its inability to alert the CIA to an impending attack, Mossad arranged on September 1, according to Tel Aviv sources last week, for Russian intelligence to warn Washington 'in the strongest possible terms of imminent assaults on airports and government buildings.'... According to similar documents shown to the Sunday Express, Mossad was running a round-the-clock surveillance operation on some of the September 11 hijackers. The details, contained in classified papers, reveal that a senior Mossad agent tipped off his counterpart in America's Central Intelligence Agency that a massive terrorist hit was being planned in the US. A handful of the spies had infiltrated the Al-Qaeda organisation while a staggering 120 others, posing as overseas art students, launched massive undercover operations throughout America... The spying operations first came to the attention of the DEA in January 2001 according to a classified 90-page dossier which has been seen by the Sunday Express."
BUSH: THE IGNORED WARNING THAT WILL COME TO HAUNT HIM
GLOBE-INTEL - NUMBER :- 104 DATE :- 21/05/02

GLOBE-INTEL

***NEWS*****ANALYSIS****COMMENTARY

EDITORS: GORDON THOMAS ***MARTIN DILLON***KEVIN DOWLING

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NUMBER :- 104 DATE :- 21/05/02

BUSH: THE IGNORED WARNING THAT WILL COME TO HAUNT HIM

By

Gordon Thomas.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon authorised the leak of sensitive documents which reveal America's spy agencies were warned about a terrorist strike weeks before September 11. The controversial move has now directly embroiled President George Bush in the 'how-much-did-he-know?' debate over the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Sharon's reaction is a calculated response to growing claims that Mossad has been running spy operations within the United States and also reveals a split in the special relationship between the two leaders.

Mossad chiefs insist the Israeli spy agency was tracking Osama Bin-Laden's terrorists in America before September 11 and that that the information was passed on to the CIA on Five separate occasions before the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon. As late as August 24, less than two weeks before the attacks, a Mossad warning, confirmed by German intelligence, BND, said that "terrorists plan to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." The warning alert was passed to the CIA.

The warning was also passed to MI6. The agency made its own checks and also informed the CIA. Frustrated by its inability to alert the CIA to an impending attack, Mossad arranged on September 1, according to Tel Aviv sources last week, for Russian intelligence to warn Washington "in the strongest possible terms of imminent assaults on airports and government buildings." Mossad's fury at the failure of the US intelligence community to act has been compounded by the revelation that the Bush administration had ordered the FBI Only a Week Before the September attacks to curtail
investigations on two of Osama Bin-Laden's close relatives living in the US
state of Virginia at the time.

Sharon's decision to allow the story of Bush's prior knowledge of the attack to be leaked comes at a time when Israel is smarting over what Sharon sees as Bush pressurising the Jewish state into an accommodation with
Arafat.

The feeling in Tel Aviv is that Bush's much hyped war on terrorism does not actually fit into the aggressive policy Israel wants to pursue.

Sharon has already suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of his archrival, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as the central committee of their Likud Party ruled out the establishment of a Palestinian
state last Sunday.

The party's decision, formalized in a resolution backed by Netanyahu, directly contradicted Sharon's own stated acceptance of a Palestinian state as the eventual conclusion of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. It came as
Sharon faces mounting domestic and international pressure to find a way to stop more than 19 months of bloodshed and launch talks with the Palestinians.

The support he was expecting from America failed to materialise, said a source close to Mossad. "Ariel Sharon is furious because he thinks Bush has not supported him as fully as he could. His coalition is falling apart, Netanyahu has sneaked ahead of him and the Israelis are generally fed up of living in fear. Sharon is quite clear where the blame lies - in the White House. "Now he has really stirred things up by putting Bush right at the centre of this storm by actively allowing these sensitive documents to be leaked to the world. He feels he needs to teach Bush a lesson and this will certainly complicate America's peace efforts in the region," he said.

According to similar documents shown to the Sunday Express, Mossad was running a round-the-clock surveillance operation on some of the September 11 hijackers.

The details, contained in classified papers, reveal that a senior Mossad agent tipped off his counterpart in America's Central Intelligence Agency that a massive terrorist hit was being planned in the US. A handful of the spies had infiltrated the Al-Qaeda organisation while a staggering 120 others, posing as overseas art students, launched massive
undercover operations throughout America.

Other documents leaked to the Sunday Express from several intelligence agencies including the Drugs Enforcement Agency show that two Mossad cells of six Egyptian and Yemeni born Jews, trained at a secret base in Israel's Negev Desert on how to penetrate Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

One team flew to Amsterdam and were under the control of Mossad's Europe Station. This is based at Schipol Airport within the El Al complex. They later made contact in Hamburg with Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker on September 11.
The second group flew directly to New York. From there they travelled South to Florida and infiltrated the Bin laden organisation. In August last year, the Mossad team in Europe flew with some of the Hamburg terrorists into Boston, a month before the attack on the twin towers.

By then the Mossad team had established an attack on the US was "imminent". It reported this to its Tel Aviv controller through the Israeli Embassy in Washington using a system of secure communications. In early September Mossad Chief Efraim Halevy sent a warning to the CIA of the possibility of such an attack. The warning was noted and acknowledged. But CIA chief George Tenet is understood to have described it as "too non-specific." The FBI was also informed. Halevy sent a second alert to the CIA that reached Washington on or around September 7.

A spokesman for the FBI refused to discuss specific details of the Mossad operation but said: "There are Congressional hearings with regard to possible intelligence failures arising from September 11. We can't verify
your information because it is part of an ongoing investigation."

Neither the DEA or the CIA would comment on the record, but a senior US intelligence source said: "Anyone can be wise after the event but it was extremely difficult to act on a non specific threat given in a couple of tips from Israeli intelligence. It would be interesting to know if they could have been more specific with their information.

''Their surveillance teams must have observed Atta and his accomplices going to flying schools. I guess we might never know the real truth."

The spying operations first came to the attention of the DEA in January 2001 according to a classified 90-page dossier which has been seen by the Sunday Express. The names, passport details and other personal records of some of the Israeli-born spies are also detailed in the dossier.

(ends)

GORDON THOMAS - read more of his amazing work - Seeds of Fire: China And The Story Behind the Attack on America - Gideon's Spies : The Secret History of the Mossad - The Jesus Conspiracy

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has said publicly that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the United States last summer
that suicide pilots were training for attacks on U.S. targets."
Clues Alerted White House to Potential Attacks
Fox News, 17 May 2002

"Israeli intelligence officials say 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. The Telegraph has learnt that two 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...."
Israeli security issued urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks
Daily Telegraph, 19 September 2001

"FBI and CIA officials were advised in August that as many as 200 terrorists were slipping into this country and planning 'a major assault on the United States' ..... The advisory was passed on by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency. It cautioned that it had picked up indications of a 'large-scale target' in the United States and that Americans would be 'very vulnerable,'....."
Officials Told of 'Major Assault' Plans
Los Angeles Times, 20 September 2001

"Since Sept. 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States. There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9/11 attacks, but investigators suspect that the Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance..... "
Carl Cameron Investigates
Fox News, 17 December 2001
(Note, that controversially this four part report was subsequently removed by Fox from its web site)

"It is rather strange that the US media seems to be ignoring what may well be the most explosive story since the 11 September attacks — the alleged break-up of a major Israeli espionage operation in the USA."
Allies and espionage
Jane's Security News, 13 March 2002

"It is rather strange that the US media, with one notable exception, seems to be ignoring what may well prove to be the most explosive story since the 11 September attacks - the alleged break-up of a major Israeli espionage operation in the United States.... US officials admitted to reporters that the entire investigation had become 'too hot to handle', but declined to give further details."
Allies and Espionage
Jane's Intelligence Digest, 15 March 2002

"A major international espionage saga is unfolding across the United States.....The nation's most prominent Jewish newspaper, the New York-based Forward, also has confirmed portions of the vast spying network --although stating that the Israelis were monitoring Arabs in the United States, not trying to access U.S. secrets. Referring to the arrest of five Israeli employees of a New Jersey moving company who were arrested and held for two months after the Sept. 11 attack, Forward on March 15 stated: 'According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis ... were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front.' Forward also reported that a counterintelligence probe concluded two of the men were operatives of Mossad, Israel's spy service. Reports of the spying were first made public in December broadcasts by Fox News reporter Carl Cameron. It isn't clear whether he had the 60-page document or was only told its contents. A French online news service has obtained the report, and Le Monde in Paris has advanced the story. However, in the United States, the media ignored the original Fox broadcast, and only a handful of publications have aggressively pursued the story in recent weeks."
Israeli Spies Exposed
Tampa Bay Weekly Planet, 22 April 2002

"Based on its own intelligence, the Israeli government provided 'general' information to the United States in the second week of August [2001] that an Al Qaeda attack was imminent."
Clues Alerted White House to Potential Attacks
Fox News, 17 May 2002

"Months before the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA knew two of the hijackers were in the United States and that they were connected to the al Qaeda organization, Newsweek reported on Sunday..... for a year and nine months after the CIA identified them as terrorists, Alhazmi and Almihdhar lived openly in the United States, using their real names, obtaining driver's licenses, opening bank accounts and enrolling in flight schools. "
CIA Knew Two Sept. 11 Hijackers Were in U.S.
Reuters, 2 June 2002

"Eight days before the September 11 attack, Egypt's senior intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, informed the CIA station chief in Cairo that 'credible sources' had told him that Osama bin-Laden's network was 'in the advanced stages of executing a significant operation against an American target.' Prior to that, the FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley had revealed, there was a similar warning from French intelligence. Both warnings, Globe-Intel has established, originally came from Mossad. The Israeli intelligence service chose to pass on its own intelligence to Washington through its contacts in French and Egyptian intelligence agencies because it did not believe its previous warnings on an impending attack by the bin-Laden network had been taken seriously enough in Washington....Coupled to the warnings that Mossad arranged to be passed through French intelligence and which Coleen Rowley has used to lambaste her chief, FBI director Robert Mueller, the failure to act assumes frightening proportions. The revelations make a mockery of George Tenet's claim that he was 'proud' of the CIA's record..... It is beginning to emerge that intelligence relating to pre-September 11 stopped at the desk of National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice. The question as to why the President was not fully briefed has led to others. Had a decision been taken by Rice in consultation with Secretary of Defense and other high-ranking members of the Bush Administration to effectively not inform Bush of what was developing because they did not trust his limited experience in dealing with global terrorism – or a major threat of any kind? Officially such a question is dismissed around the White House as nonsensical. Yet it persists within the State Department – where Secretary of State Colin Powell remains outside the charmed inner circle surrounding Bush. There, senior officials point to the fact that the CIA briefing to Bush last August, less than a month before the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, turned out to be conspicuous by what was not said. Yet, at that time the CIA knew of the impending threat. There are other pointers that the President may have been kept out of the loop."
Gordon Thomas - The Mossad and 9/11
Globe-Intel 17 June 2002

"New revelations are putting the CIA in a tight spot. Apparently the Israeli intelligence service Mossad gave early warnings to their American counterparts about the terrorist group around Mohamed Atta. Furthermore, German investigators found out after the attacks that their U.S. colleagues had already known a great deal about the Hamburg students two years in advance of Sept. 11, 2001. The latest discoveries were made by the Hamburg weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT, which on Thursday (Oct. 3) intends to publish an extensive dossier on the failures of the Central Intelligence Agency. Freelance author Oliver Schroem therein sums up the results of his research among various European and American agencies..... Apparently the CIA acquired very specific information on several of the later suicide pilots of Sept. 11. These clues were ignored, although the suspects were already in the United States. Two of the later pilots were on an FBI wanted list starting in August 2001. Nevertheless, they were able to move unrecognized around the country and get on to the death jets using their own real names. The hottest lead would have led the Americans straight to the Hamburg terrorists around Mohamed Atta - if they had listened to their colleagues from the Israeli Mossad. Israeli agents were observing several of the terror pilots in the United States. According to research by ZEIT, between December 2000 and April 2001 a whole horde of Israeli counter-terror investigators, posing as students, followed the trails of Arab terrorists and their cells in the United States. In their secret investigations, the Israelis came very close to the later perpetrators of Sept. 11. In the town of Hollywood, Florida, they identified the two former Hamburg students and later terror pilots Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi as possible terrorists. Agents lived in the vicinity of the apartment of the two seemingly normal flight school students, observing them around the clock. Not long after, however, the [Israeli] agents were discovered by the U.S. authorities and deported to Israel. As is usual in such cases, the discovery was not made public and caused much annoyance between the traditionally competitive intelligence services, Mossad and CIA. .... With the deportation of the agents, the observation of the later terrorists was terminated. The Israelis provided a list including the names of at least four out of the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11, but this was apparently not treated as sufficiently urgent by the CIA and also not passed on to the FBI. What is clear is that the U.S. agencies did not react quickly in following up on the tips from the Israeli agents. The ongoing congressional joint investigation has also found out about the Israeli angle. However, the Israelis also had not yet found out about the specific plan for the Sept. 11 attacks. At the same time, they believed that the 19 persons named in their list were potential terrorists who 'were planning attacks in the United States,' as DIE ZEIT writes. Only later did the American police search for Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. Both were on the Israeli list, and both later sat in the airplane that crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. Although their names were on an FBI national watch list starting in the late summer of 2001, they traveled without trouble in the United States and also boarded the death jets on Sept. 11 with passports in their real names."
Mossad Agents Were On Atta's Tail
Der Spiegel (Germany), 1 October 2002

"Crawford, Aug. 6, 2001. U.S. president George W. Bush is on vacation. He wants to spend the whole month at his ranch in Texas. Every morning, however, he still receives his Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, wherein the CIA informs the president about the country's security situation. On this morning, the report is straight from the CIA director. His PDB runs 11 and one-half printed pages, instead of the usual two to three, and carries the title, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' Therein the CIA chief explains that al Qaeda has decided to carry out attacks within the United States, and that presumably members of the terrorist organization have been in the country for some time. It is unclear whether the CIA director informed the president about the statements of arrested al Qaeda members. According to their confessions, the terrorist organization for some time has been thinking about hijacking planes and using them as missiles... Langley, Aug. 23, 2001. The Israeli intelligence service Mossad presents to its American counterpart a list of names of terrorists who are living in the United States and seem to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. According to documents obtained by DIE ZEIT, Mossad agents in the United States were following at least four of the 19 hijackers, including Almihdhar. The CIA now finally does what it should have done 18 months earlier. It informs the State Department, the FBI and the INS about Almihdhar and Alhazmi, who are immediately put on a watch list as presumed members of al Qaeda. In Almihdhar's case, the warning adds that he most likely participated in the Cole bombing. A response does not take long. The immigration service writes back that according to its documents, both of the wanted men are currently in the United States.... One of the New York FBI agents calls headquarters in Washington and asks for reinforcements. He wants to widen the dragnet cast for Almihdhar. The FBI agent knows how dangerous Almihdhar is, for he spent months working on the Cole case. As a result he met CIA agents who mentioned the name Almihdhar. When he reads the name again on the watch list, with the additional notation that Almihdhar is suspected of involvement in the Cole bombing, the FBI agent becomes annoyed at his CIA colleagues, for having previously kept this information from him. But he becomes even more annoyed when his own headquarters refuses any support.... Washington, D.C. June 4, 2002. The FBI does not want to serve as the sole scapegoat for what the CIA has burdened it with. After all, the CIA committed the decisive mistake by not passing on the information about Alhazmi and Almihdhar for 18 months. This information is leaked to NEWSWEEK, which quotes an FBI man, 'No question, if we had gotten the information in time, we would have bagged all 19 of the hijackers.' The spies have started to sling mud at each other. Did the CIA and FBI fail disastrously? A joint commission of Senate and House members is supposed to explore these questions.... Washington, D.C., Sept. 11, 2002. The joint investigation began its work more than three months ago, but is being torpedoed by the Bush administration, says the Republican Senator Richard C. Shelby, vice-chairman of the committee to the New York Times. The government refuses to reveal just what information was passed on to President Bush in advance of the attacks. 'I am certain that so far our questions have only scratched the surface,' says Shelby. 'I am sure that one or two bombshells are still going to go off.' As more information about mistakes and omissions of the CIA and FBI end up leaking to the media, an investigation is initiated against the congressional committee members. The FBI begins an investigation and asks the senators and House members if they are prepared to take polygraphs. Washington, D.C., Sept. 18, 2002. The joint investigation's public hearings begin. Relatives of the victims of Sept. 11 also get to testify. 1,300 of them have joined an interest group, their spokesperson is Stephen Push, who lost his wife. She sat in the plane that was hijacked by the group around Almihdhar. 'If the intelligence community had been doing its job, my wife would be alive today.' FBI and CIA agents then testify before the committee. They have been promised anonymity and testify from behind a wall that conceals them from the eyes of the attending public. Many relatives of the victims sit there, silently holding photos. As a few agents confess how they were kept from investigating by their superiors, the widow of a firefighter who died in the WTC is overwhelmed. 'These people are guilty of negligence in their jobs,' she says. 'They should be put in front of a court. They are at least partly responsible for the death of 3,000 people.'"
Deadly Mistakes
U.S. Investigators Knew About Planned Terror Attacks, Let the Suspects Get Away. More Clues That CIA and FBI Could Have Prevented the Attack on America
Die Zeit (Germany), 1 October 2002

"The American intelligence agency, the CIA, could have prevented the 11 September attacks if it were not for systematic failures, according to the German newspaper Die Zeit. The paper has uncovered details of a major Israeli spy ring involving some a 120 agents for the intelligence service Mossad operating across America and some masquerading as arts students. The ring was reportedly hard on the heels of at least four members of the hijack gang, including its leader Mohammed Atta. But the Israeli agents were detected by their American counterparts and thrown out of the country, it says. The US authorities said then that they were students whose visas had expired. Just a month before the deadly attacks, the paper said, Mossad handed over to the Americans a detailed report naming several suspects they believe were preparing an attack on the United States."
Report details US 'intelligence failures'
BBC Online, 2 October 2002

"At the same time that the FBI was getting close to investigating [911 hijackers] Alhazmi and Almihdhar, the Mossad, Israel’s feared secret service, gave the US an urgent warning, according to recent reports from Germany. These reports say that on August 23, 2001, the Mossad gave the CIA a list of terrorists living in the US and said that they appeared to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. The list of terrorists contained 19 names. It is unknown if these are the same exact 19 names as the actual hijackers or if the number is a coincidence. However, four names on the list are known and were names of the 9/11 hijackers: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta. It appears that a spy ring run by the Mossad had been closely following these terrorists for many months. In December 2000, Mossad agents rented an apartment in Hollywood, Florida, close to where Atta and Alshehhi were staying and attending flight school. They were closely spied upon until at least April 2001, when many of the Israeli agents were thrown out of the country. [Die Zeit, 10/1/02, Der Spiegel, 10/1/02, BBC, 10/2/02, Haaretz, 10/3/02] It has not been stated how the Mossad knew of Alhazmi and Almihdhar, but a Drug Enforcement Administration report on the Israeli spy ring internally released in June 2001 (and leaked after 9/11) noted the presence of Israeli spies in San Diego, California and Phoenix, Arizona at times when Alhazmi and Almihdhar would have been in those cities. [DEA Report, 6/01] Yet, apparently this warning and list were not treated as particularly urgent by the CIA and also not passed on to the FBI. [Der Spiegel, 10/1/02]"
Alhazmi and Almihdhar: The 9/11 Hijackers Who Should Have Been Caught
Centre for Co-operative Research, 18 October 2002

What Defensive Measures Did The Bush Administration Take In The Light Of The Above Warnings?

"..... incredibly there were just four fighters planes on stand-by in the North Eastern United States [on 911]...."
Gavin Hewitt, BBC News - Video report, 'Clear The Skies'
BBC Online, 29 August 2002

"A joint Senate-House intelligence select committee inquiry in July 2003 stated: 'KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] appears to be one of Bin Laden's most trusted lieutenants and was active in recruiting people to travel outside Afghanistan, including to the US, on behalf of Bin Laden.' According to the report, the clear implication was that they would be engaged in planning terrorist-related activities. The report was sent from the CIA to the FBI, but neither agency apparently recognised the significance of a Bin Laden lieutenant sending terrorists to the US and asking them to establish contacts with colleagues already there....... Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism chief, when he saw the passenger lists later on the day [of 9/11] itself [said]: 'I was stunned ... that there were al-Qaida operatives on board using names that the FBI knew were al-Qaida.' It was just that, as Dale Watson, head of counter-terrorism at the FBI told him, the 'CIA forgot to tell us about them'."
The Pakistan connection
Guardian, 22 July 2004

"The federal government's 'no-fly' list had [only] 16 names on it on Sept. 11, 2001."
Faulty 'No-Fly' System Detailed
Washington Post, 9 October 2004