Thus, it would appear that the FBI had a hand in linking Omar Saeed to the kidnappers of Daniel Pearl. This is an important fact to consider, for -remember - The Times of India, on October 9, had linked Saeed to ISI Chief Ahmad, reporting that Indian intelligence had supplied evidence to the FBI. In the aftermath, ISI Chief Ahmad was "quietly retired" at the insistence of the U.S. government, according to the Oct. 9 Times of India. Eventually, the American mainstream media - mostly through Time Magazine - would provide the cover story for General Ahmad, tagging him as "pro-Taliban" yet omitting any suggestions that he might have been orchestrating payment for the 9/11 hijackers, with Saeed as his primary agent. And while the mainstream media began to effectively distance Saeed from the money trail soon thereafter (while simultaneously "smothering" the money trail story), the Justice Department waited a month after the October 9 revelations to finally move against Saeed by issuing an indictment - but not by reason of any alleged 9/11 links. According to a CNN item posted February 28, 2002: "U.S. officials said that [Omar Saeed] was secretly indicted in November in connection with the 1994 kidnapping in India of western tourists, including an American. Justice Department officials won't say what prompted that indictment, which came more than six years after the incident."
The revelation - in February - that the FBI had already moved against Saeed back in November was an excellent exercise in "plausible deniability." The indictment itself would provide a cover story for any future "limited hangout" concerning Saeed's links to the money trail. Citing "uncertainty" as to the true identity of the pseudonymous paymaster Mustafa Ahmad, the Justice Department could then claim that it played it "safe" in November by indicting Saeed for an offense to which he could definitely be linked. Any notion of a "cover-up" could then be dismissed by evidence for the admitted confusion surrounding the identity of "Shaykh Sai'id" as Mustafa Ahmad.
By late February, most of the components for the full cover story were coming together in the mainstream media. Omar Saeed could now simultaneously be linked to al-Qaida and "rogue" elements in the ISI, distancing him from President Musharraf and the post-September 11 "good" ISI. As reported by Nancy Gibbs in a February 25 article for TIME:"Pakistani investigators and newspapers in the U.S. have speculated that rogue elements linked to the ISI wanted to demonstrate to Musharraf and the world that they were not so easily tamed...[Musharraf] was able to cut the extremists loose after Sept. 11 and replace the hardline, pro-Taliban ISI Chief [General Ahmad]..."
In short, the mainstream media were laying the groundwork for a possible future "hangout" on explicit links between General Ahmad's "rogue" ISI clique and Omar Saeed. In this respect, Saeed and General Ahmad would be portrayed as having a common intention. As reported by Kamran Khan and Molly Moore of the Washington Post on February 18: "Saeed said attacks outside the U.S. cultural center in Calcutta, the Indian Parliament in New Delhi and a legislative assembly in Kashmir were aimed at provoking India into taking action against Pakistan. Extremist organizers - some with ties to Saeed - hoped Musharraf would be forced to back away from his public stand against militant activities, Saeed told police."
While the Post item by Khan and Moore also mentioned Saeed's links to bin Laden - "Saeed told [police] he had traveled to Afghanistan 'a few days after September 11' to meet Osama bin Laden" - at no point was General Ahmad or the 9/11 money trail mentioned.
Yet Khan and Moore introduced a seemingly innocuous new "wrinkle" to the story - Saeed's admitted "relationship with Aftab Ansari, the alleged gangster and chief suspect in the shooting outside the U.S. cultural center in Calcutta...Saeed said he met Ansari while the two men were jailed in New Delhi's Tihar prison." To anyone reading that snippet - unaware of the Saeed/ISI/9/11 Money Trail link - the offhand mention of Ansari would barely register. As we shall shortly see, though, the addition of Ansari to an eventual "hangout" of the full cover story would be absolutely crucial, for it also involves the participation of the Times of India.
As we have seen, the Times of India, through its October 9 revelation, set in motion a huge degree of activity surrounding the evidence implicating bin Laden for September 11. Moreover, India was repeatedly being led to the brink with Pakistan through terror attacks that would eventually be linked to Saeed and/or rogue elements in the ISI. If, theoretically, India had the "goods" on Pakistan and the U.S. government, apparently other forces were at work to maintain countervailing pressure on India. If the October 9 revelation seemed - on its face - to be an attempt by India to soil the reputation of Pakistan, by February 13, the Times of India was explicitly backing away from the sinister implications of its October 9 outing.
When the news of Saeed's "official" arrest broke on February 12, here is how the Times of India would describe Saeed's connection to the 9/11 money trail a day later: "...there were allegations that [Saeed] had organized at least one bank remittance to the terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 strikes in the US and that Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed had helped him in this regard. There was, however, no evidence to indicate whether Ahmed was aware that this amount was meant for the terrorist strikes in the U.S."
This was a crucial point to emphasize, for it was widely known that General Ahmad had been involved in several intense discussions with American officials in the months leading up to 9/11. The importance of any cover story, then, would be to divert attention and thought from The Implication That Dare Not Speak Its Name - that General Ahmad's ISI were the operational commanders of the 9/11 hijackers, acting themselves as proxies for the U.S. government/U.K./EU (i.e., the coalition spearheading the War On Terrorism).
With General Ahmad's involvement in 9/11 thus somewhat obfuscated by the Times of India on February 13, the Times of India then proceeded, on February 14, to fully "inoculate" against the virus that it had released on October 9. Its main vaccine - Aftab Ansari: "Aftab Ansari arranged for $100,000 for Omar [Saeed] Sheikh, prime accused in the kidnapping of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl...Ansari arranged a series of e-mails with [Saeed] and Asif Reza Khan [who was killed on December 7] in August 2001, where he was asked to help out with a 'noble cause'... Indian officials interrogating Ansari said that, on August 8, 2001, Ansari asked Khan over e-mail whether he agreed to part with $100,000 for a 'noble cause' as requested by [Saeed]...on August 11, Ansari sent an e-mail to Khan saying that 'the amount mentioned had been sent to [Saeed]'...On August 19, [Saeed] e-mailed Ansari again, saying, 'The money that was sent has been passed on.'"
Thus, after attempting to clip ISI General Ahmad out of the picture on February 13, the Times of India then attempted the next day to insert Aftab Ansari into the money trail story. Conveniently, Ansari was deported from the United Arab Emirates to India only a few days before, where he was arrested for the terror attack in Calcutta. As the UAE was previously reported by the American media to be the country from which the pseudonymous paymaster "Mustafa Ahmad" made the $100,000 wire transfer, Ansari's link to that country would provide further confirmation for this developing cover story.
And while Pakistan was not quite let off the hook, the Times of India - by way of Ansari - now more firmly linked the money trail back to al-Qaida: "Officials said the e-mails also hint at Ansari's possible linkages with the al-Qaeda network. The e-mails also refute Pakistani authorities' rebuttal of their nexus with the deported gangster. Interestingly, the mode of communication adopted by them is similar to that used by Mohammad Atta and other al-Qaeda members to carry out the September 11 attacks...This gives credence to the perception that Ansari had arranged $100,000 for the terror attacks on America, officials said."
End Part V