9/11 Terror Attacks Not A Qaeda Plot

9/11 terror attacks not a Qaeda plot

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/interv...n-levy-2454074

Iftikhar Gilani | Mon, 29 May 2017-06:55am

British authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark are in India again, this time with an extraordinary account of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the years following the 9/11 attacks. In an exclusive interview, Levy discusses his forthcoming book The Exile with Iftikhar Gilani and reveals interesting details, hitherto unknown to the world. Here are excerpts of the interview:

Your book reveals that LeT had nearly triggered a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, to open a passage for Osama out of the besieged mountains. But the Indian intelligence has been telling us that the attack was launched by JeM. Why this difference?

When the Taliban rout began in December 2001, the US paid the Pakistan Army to assist in closing the back-door exit from Tora Bora — a plan devised by Bob Grenier, the CIA Station Chief in Islamabad. The US bought the assistance of IX Corp, approximately 6,000 soldiers. Only a war-like situation could trigger this. JeM attacked the Indian Parliament, which they say, was designed to create a war-like situation. It also made Pakistan consider a nuclear option.

The White House knew the whereabouts of Laden’s family and Al Qaeda leaders, but did nothing to capture them. Instead, they pursued a war in the Gulf. Any reason behind this?

Many countries benefit from enabling insurgencies far more than they do by quashing them. Pakistan, US, and even India prefer certain wars to run long. There is a war dividend. The Bush Administration could have seized Al Qaeda’s religious shura, and part of its military council, and held almost all of Osama’s family, potentially forcing him to expose himself, as far back as in 2002. Instead, Bush accused Iraq of aiding Al Qaeda to justify a long-held agenda to topple Saddam.

Why do you think intelligence agencies all over the world could not get a hint of 9/11 attack plans?

The 9/11 conspiracy is ‘mis-described’ as an Al Qaeda plot. It was hatched outside of Al Qaeda circles, with the outfit’s ruling military council and religious shura kept in the dark. Both bodies disliked Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who chalked out the plan.

Why despite spending billions and taking military actions, the West has been unable to root out Al Qaeda and ISIS?

Al Qaeda’s leadership was sheltered by Iran. Sources have revealed the proximity of Shia Iran to Sunni Al Qaeda. Iran shares common borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan. This offered a protective bubble that US forces dared not penetrate.

Did Operation Parakram provide safe passage to Osama from Afghanistan?

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report...nistan-2454070

Iftikhar Gilani | Mon, 29 May 2017-06:50am , New Delhi , DNA

Levy says his investigation revealed that US paid the Pak Army to assist in closing the back door of Tora Bora — a plan devised by the CIA chief in Islamabad

Was the Indian military mobilisation between 2001 and 2002, otherwise known as 'Operation Parakram', a distraction to allow the besieged Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden to run away from the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan? Two British authors, Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, known for their specialisation in investigative work have made startling claims in their forthcoming book The Exile. They say the attack was choreographed to incite India to create a war-like situation. They have also detailed, hitherto, unknown contacts between the hardcore Sunni Al Qaeda leaders and the Shiate Iran.

In an exclusive interview with DNA, Levy says his investigation revealed that the US paid the Pakistani Army to assist in closing the back door of Tora Bora — a plan devised by Bob Grenier, the CIA station chief in Islamabad. "Only a war or war-like state could have seen these six battalions redeployed," he said. While confirming Indian intelligence claims that the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) attack on Parliament was a planned sortie, conducted with the logistical assistance of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the author said prior to the attack, complex secret negotiations were on between Al Qaida and US officials.

Till December 11, both sides were in talks over a surrender deal through Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, a Libyan commander who had been with Bin Laden from the start, opening Khaldan, one of the first Mujahideen training camps set up with the CIA during the 1980s. He asked for an extension to the deal in a communication on December 11 and 12, but on December 13, the day Indian Parliament was attacked, there was no word from the caves. In a few days, all 6,000 Pakistan troops moved out, leaving the anvil wide open. Soon, there was no trace of the Al Qaeda chief and his commanders.

According to an estimate, the military build-up cost India US$3.4 billion and Pakistan US $1.4 billion. Even without fighting an actual war, India lost 789 soldiers while laying mines and exchanging gunfire.

Levy also reveals that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 architect, whose men safeguarded the Al Qaeda fighters, had met LeT chief Hafiz Saeed. He said documents and communications to prove a link between the Al Qaeda and the LeT leader were seized by the US when it captured Mohammad and Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Pakistan. "This led the CIA to conclude that the ISI also knew intimate details about Al Qaeda, as LeT could not have had dealings with that outfit without passing them along," he said, adding that some officers in the ISI, and the jihad fronts were prepared to risk a regional conflagration, with a nuclear dimension, to ensure Osama and the leadership escaped.

From Tora Bora to Abbottabad: The strange history of Bin Laden's 'Wander Years' (Book Review)

http://www.business-standard.com/art...2900187_1.html

IANS May 29, 2017 Last Updated at 10:32 IST

Between fleeing his Tora Bora mountain stronghold in 2001 till the US finally settled scores with him in 2011, Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts were a deep mystery. But in his -- and his top aides -- disappearance, there was far more going on than we know. Remember what else happened in the Indian subcontinent in December 2011 that may have facilitated his escape from Afghanistan?

And then it is not only Pakistan's complicity or negligence that is the story, nor the US' short-sighted approach and its egregious errors that long delayed his detection after top Al Qaeda leaders were bombed out of their Afghan safe haven by the vengeful Americans in wake of 9/11.

In their latest book, the gifted investigative journalist duo of Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy bring out much more that we know or believe about Al Qaeda -- its tense relations with the Taliban, how divided it was over 9/11, and who actually called the shots in the operation which, despite its success, turned out to be massive overreach.

And there is a most complete account of how Bin Laden and his extensive family spent their dangerous "wander years", especially the rather strange things he got up to. (According to some sources, he attended a preparatory meeting on the 26/11 Mumbai attack) and the efforts to apprehend them.

Of equal relevance is a penetrating examination of the close but strange and eventually strained links between Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Noting that nearly two decades after "few books have told the history of Al Qaeda from the inside", Scott-Clark and Levy hold that the difficulty of getting into "any volatile, paranoiac outfit, one that executes outsiders as spies and lures reporters to meetings that become kidnappings" is just one reason.

The other reason, say the duo, whose most recent work was on the 26/11 Mumbai attack, especially on the heritage Taj Hotel, is an "extraordinary act of control by Western governments", particularly the Americans, who only released a "cherry-picked history" and even misleading revelations by sources.

On the other hand, while a surprising number of top Al Qaeda leaders retain their life and (some) liberty, there is a virtual gag order by various Arab, Asian and African governments that took them in.

But Scott-Clark and Levy, who got the idea for this book from a chance meeting in 2012 with a Yemeni youth who had come to Pakistan to free his sister -- Bin Laden's fourth wife, held by authorities after the Abbottabad raid along with other survivors -- contend it is a story that needs to be told.

"We need more detail and not less. We require more nuance and understanding if we are to ever tamp down a bloody conflict that threatens the globe...." they say and spent years of research and meet a varied set of people to get the complete story.

And these meetings with Bin Laden's family, friends, mentors, companions, aides, as well as security chiefs and religious and media advisers, in Pakistan, across the Middle East from the Gulf to Mauritania, the US and Britain, resulted in "a story told about Al Qaeda by Al Qaeda men and women with nothing more to lose but lots to prove" -- and well corroborated.

But apart from Bin Laden's life as well of his family and close associates, there are also key political, security and geopolitical issues they bring out -- express or implied.

And while America's willful blundering into another war before an existing one was won or even successfully completed is known, we also learn about its tendency to let its predilections, not pragmatism, dictate its statecraft and brute force and near-torture its interrogation methods over skilled but non-violent methods of competent interlocutors.

But while a temporary gainer was then Pakistani leader, Gen Pervez Musharraf, who saw aid dollars in every help he rendered to the US before his own life was threatened and realisation dawned there was a secret power centre accountable only to itself, the winner was another regional power that took deft strategic advantage of Al Qaeda's dispersal to safeguard itself and to make up with other enemies. And when they were rebuffed, Iran had the tools for revenge.