Sept. 11's Smoking Gun: The Many Faces of Saeed Sheikh

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/e...cle=essaysaeed

By Paul Thompson
9/2002

If you read just one thing at this website, please read this essay. Don’t mind the length and complexity. Saeed Sheikh’s story is not just mildly interesting. Understanding the history of this young man may not only explain many mysteries of 9/11, including solid evidence of foreign government involvement in the attacks, but may also reveal if nuclear war in the near future is likely. No kidding. Please read! Note that this was first written in September 2002 but has been thoroughly overhauled based on exposure to additional evidence. Also, click to find more details about Saeed Sheikh and his boss Mahmood Ahmed.

The ISI: “The Invisible Government”
As the London Times has put it, Saeed Sheikh “is no ordinary terrorist but a man who has connections that reach high into Pakistan’s military and intelligence elite and into the innermost circles of Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization.” [London Times, 4/21/02] To understand why Saeed is so important in understanding 9/11, it is necessary to first understand the Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The ISI plays a much more significant role in the Pakistani government than do its counterparts in other countries. Time Magazine has noted, “Even by the shadowy standards of spy agencies, the ISI is notorious. It is commonly branded ‘a state within the state,’ or Pakistan’s ‘invisible government.’” [Time, 5/6/02] The ISI grew into its present form during the war between the Soviet Union and mujaheddin guerrillas in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The CIA thought the Afghan war could be Russia’s own costly Vietnam War, and they funneled billions to the mujaheddin resistance to keep them a thorn in Russia’s side. The strategy worked: Soviet soldiers withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, and the Soviet Union collapsed two years later, partly due to the costs of the war. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/23/01]

But the costs to keep the mujaheddin fighting were staggering, with estimates ranging between $6 billion and $40 billion. [New York Times, 8/24/98, Nation, 2/15/99] While a substantial portion of this amount came from the CIA and the Saudi Arabian government, who were both funneling the money through the ISI, much of the cost was deferred by Afghanistan’s opium trade. The Sydney Morning Herald notes, “Opium cultivation and heroin production in Pakistan’s northern tribal belt and adjoining Afghanistan were a vital offshoot of the ISI-CIA cooperation. It succeeded in turning some of the Soviet troops into addicts. Heroin sales in Europe and the US, carried out through an elaborate web of deception, transport networks, couriers and payoffs, offset the cost of the decade-long war in Afghanistan.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/27/01] Afghan opium production ballooned from 250 tons in 1982 at the start of the war to 2,000 tons in 1991 just after its end. The Minneapolis Star Tribune observed, “If their local allies were involved in narcotics trafficking”—the ISI and their allies in Afghanistan—“it didn’t trouble CIA.” [Star Tribune, 9/30/01]

Although the Afghan war has ended, the ISI has continued to profit from opium. In 1999, the United Nations Drug Control Programme estimated that the ISI was making around $2.5 billion annually from the sale of illegal drugs. [Times of India, 11/29/99] The drug trade helped unite the ISI and Osama bin Laden, who was said to have taken a 15% cut of the Afghan drug trade money in exchange for protecting smugglers and laundering their profits. [Star Tribune, 9/30/01]

By 1994, the Taliban, a group of Muslim radicals studying in Pakistan, began conquering Afghanistan. The Taliban had been recruited by the ISI and molded into a fanatical force that conquered Afghanistan’s capital by 1996. CNN reported, “The Taliban are widely alleged to be the creation of Pakistan’s military intelligence [the ISI]. Experts say that explains the Taliban’s swift military successes.” [CNN, 10/5/96] This support continued. For instance, in early 2001, a leading US expert on South Asia claimed that the Taliban were still “on the payroll of the ISI.” [Times of India, 3/7/01] The ISI didn’t create the Taliban simply for strategic reasons; they shared the Taliban’s extreme radical vision. As the Wall Street Journal remarked in November 2001, “Despite their clean chins and pressed uniforms, the ISI men are as deeply fundamentalist as any bearded fanatic; the ISI created the Taliban as their own instrument and still supports it.” [Asia Times, 11/15/01]

Saeed’s Background
Saeed Sheikh would eventually become deeply involved in the world of the ISI, as well as al-Qaeda. But initially he seemed an unlikely candidate for a career in espionage and terrorism. He was born in Britain with the name Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the son of a wealthy Pakistani clothing manufacturer. He grew up in London, a brilliant student attending the best private schools. He studied mathematics and statistics at the London School of Economics. While still at school, he started a successful shares and equities business and also was a chess champion, world class arm wrestler, and martial arts expert—a rare combination of physical and mental prowess. [Rediff, 2/6/02, South Asian Outlook, 3/02]

His life took a turn when he volunteered for charity work in Bosnia in late 1992. The Bosnian war was raging, and he saw atrocities committed by Serbians on Bosnian Muslims. He returned to Britain a committed Muslim radical. Because of his impressive abilities in economics and mathematics, as well as fluency in English and complete understanding of Western society, he was a very valuable asset to any terrorist group. [ABC News, 2/7/02]

In 1993 he emerged in Pakistan as a member of a militant group fighting for the liberation of Kashmir from India. Pakistan has been fighting India for years over control of Kashmir, and it appears Saeed was put on the ISI payroll around this time, to help the Pakistani cause in Kashmir. [ABC News, 2/7/02] In 1994, Saeed began training at a training camp in Afghanistan. He soon was teaching the classes. [Los Angeles Times, 2/9/02] He developed close ties with al-Qaeda while training there. By the end of the year he was known as Osama bin Laden’s “favored son” or “my special son.” [London Times, 8/21/02, Vanity Fair, 8/02]

Prison and Escape
Saeed Sheikh was arrested in India in 1994 while on a kidnapping mission designed to trade Western tourists for Kashmiri separatists. [ABC News, 2/7/02] The ISI paid his legal fees, but he was nonetheless sentenced to a long prison term in an Indian jail. [Washington Post, 5/3/02] While in prison, his natural abilities soon allowed him to become the leader of the jail’s large Muslim population. By his own admission, he “lived practically like a Mafia don.” [London Times, 8/21/02] It has been claimed that in 1999, British intelligence secretly offered Saeed an amnesty and the ability to “live in London a free man” if he would reveal his links to al-Qaeda. He apparently refused. [Daily Mail, 7/16/02, London Times, 7/16/02] Even more curiously, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review suggested in March 2002, “There are many in Musharraf’s government who believe that Saeed Sheikh’s power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA. The theory is that… Saeed Sheikh was bought and paid for.” [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/3/02]

In December 1999, terrorists hijacked an Indian Airlines aircraft and flew it to Kandahar, Afghanistan. After an eight-day standoff, the 155 hostages were released in exchange for Saeed and two other three Pakistani terrorists held by India. [BBC, 12/31/99] He must have been already highly valued by al-Qaeda, because the hijacking appears to have been largely funded and carried out by them. [CNN, 6/13/02, New York Times, 12/6/01] Saeed stayed at a Kandahar guesthouse for several days, conferring with Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar and Osama bin Laden. An ISI colonel then escorted him to a safe house in Pakistan. [Vanity Fair, 8/02]

Saeed Keeps Busy
In his roughly two years of freedom before 9/11, Saeed was a very busy terrorist. According to Newsweek, once in Pakistan, Saeed “lived openly—and opulently—in a wealthy Lahore neighborhood. US sources say he did little to hide his connections to terrorist organizations, and even attended swanky parties attended by senior Pakistani government officials.” The US government inferred that he was a “protected asset” of the ISI. [Newsweek, 3/13/02] In fact, his house was given to him by the ISI. [Vanity Fair, 8/02] Even more remarkably, the media reported that Saeed was freely able to return to Britain [Press Trust of India, 1/3/00], just as if he had accepted Britain’s secret amnesty offer. He visited his parents in Britain in 2000 and again in early 2001. [Vanity Fair, 8/02, BBC, 7/16/02, Telegraph, 7/16/02] The British citizens kidnapped by Saeed in 1994 called the government’s decision not to try him a “disgrace” and “scandalous.” [Press Trust of India, 1/3/00]

It as been reported that Saeed helped train the hijackers. [Telegraph, 9/30/01] Presumably this happened in Afghanistan, where he trained others and where he traveled regularly. [New York Times, 2/25/02, National Post, 2/26/02, Guardian, 7/16/02, India Today, 2/25/02] He also reportedly helped devise a secure, encrypted Web-based communications system for al-Qaeda. “His future in the network seemed limitless; there was even talk of one day succeeding bin Laden.” [Vanity Fair, 8/02, Telegraph, 7/16/02]

But at the same time, much of his time was spent working with the ISI. He worked with Ijaz Shah, a former ISI official in charge of handling two terrorist groups, Lieutenant-General Mohammad Aziz Khan, also a former deputy chief of the ISI in charge of relations with Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Brigadier Abdullah, a former ISI officer. He was well known to other senior ISI officers. [National Post, 2/26/02, Guardian, 7/16/02, India Today, 2/25/02] How much of his work with al-Qaeda was done on the orders of the ISI is not known.

Saeed’s 9/11 Role is First Revealed
By now, the al-Qaeda 9/11 plot was in motion. Someone in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), using an alias, periodically wired money to and from hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi between June 2000 and the day before 9/11. [MSNBC, 12/11/01] The identity of this person has been a highly disputed subject. On September 23, 2001, it was first reported that authorities were now (finally) looking for Saeed Sheikh, though it wasn’t explained why. [London Times, 9/23/01] The next day, it was reported that the 9/11 “paymaster” had been found, using the alias “Mustafa Ahmed.” [Newsweek, 9/24/01] On October 1, 2001, the Guardian reported, “The man at the center of the financial web is believed to be Sheikh Saeed, also known as Mustafa Mohamed Ahmad,” but it wasn’t immediately clear who this person was. [Guardian, 10/1/01] On October 6, CNN revealed that “US investigators now believe Sheik Syed, using the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad, sent more than $100,000 from Pakistan to Mohamed Atta.” More importantly, CNN confirmed that this was in fact the same Saeed Sheikh who had been released from an Indian prison in 1999. [CNN, 10/6/01]

End Part I