GMA, General Mahmoud Ahmad (aka, Mahmud Ahmed, Mahmood Ahmed), head of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1999-Oct. 7, 2001.What if the man that funded the 9/11 attacks was eating breakfast in Washington DC on the morning of September 11, 2001 with the chairmen of the House & Senate Intelligence Committees, Democratic Senator Bob Graham from Florida and Republican Representative Porter Goss from Florida? Does that directly connect members of our government to the attacks or is this just another one of those unfathomable coincidences?
Let's go back in time for a moment. I am sure we all remember Mohammed Atta (MMA), the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. Here is part of a transcript posted on the Washington Post website of the 9/30/01 episode of ABC's "This Week" hosted by Sam Donaldson:
"As to September 11, federal authorities have now told ABC News they've tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan to two banks in Florida to accounts held by suspected hijack ringleader Mohammed Atta. As well this morning TIME magazine is reporting that some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama Bin Laden. It's all part of what has been a successful FBI effort so far to close in on the hijackers' high command, the money men, the planners, and the mastermind."
Here is an excerpt from the TIME report referred to as published on 10/08/01:
"Sources have told TIME that in the ten days prior to Sept. 11, Atta received at least two wire transfers from a man investigators have linked with bin Laden."1
The connections are convoluted by intention. The plotters covered their tracks well.
So ABC, the Washington Post and Time magazine (hardly fringe news sources) are all reporting that the FBI (or other federal authorities) are investigating who sent MMA this money under the assumption that it will lead to the ultimate planners of the attack. Another assumption being made is that this ultimate planner is Osama bin Laden (OBL).
According to this CNN report from 10/08/01 that man is Ahmed Umar Syed Shiekh (ASS):
"Freed with Ahzar was Ahmed Umar Syed Shiekh, whom authorities say used a pseudonym to wire $100,000 to suspected hijacker Mohammed Atta, who then distributed the money in the United States." 2
Remember that name. It will be written many ways (e.g., Ahmad Umar Shiekh, Omar Saeed Shiekh, Umar Shiekh), but they all refer to the same man. For simplicity, I just call him ASS. The CNN article is referring to India releasing ASS, along with Ahzer and another bad-guy, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar into Afghanistan in exchange for the hijacked passengers of Indian Airlines flight 814 on Dec. 31, 1999.
Here's another interesting thing in the CNN article:
"Indian authorities have also said that 1999 hijacking was done with the help of Pakistan's ISI or Intelligence Service." 2
The idea that Pakistan would not be acting in the best interests of India is not a big shocker, nor is the idea that India would try to make Pakistan look bad. India and Pakistan have been feuding since 1947 and are still at war with each other over the territory of the Kashmir mountains. The idea that the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) would help with the terrorist act of hijacking an airplane is of interest though. To paraphrase George W. Bush, "you are either with us or against us" and "those that harbor terrorists will be treated the same as the terrorists." Since the government of Pakistan is allied with the United States this would be something neither side would want loudly reported.
To put this in some context, here's a brief history of notable, recent geo-political events regarding Pakistan and the ISI:
It is well established that Pakistan was a major ally of the U.S. in the 80's during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The CIA would funnel money and arms to the ISI (Pakistan's CIA), the ISI would funnel this material to OBL and other mujaheddin fighters who would operate and train out of Pakistan. They would then cross over into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets to the great pleasure of our CIA.
Things went south in the 90's. After the Soviet defeat, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan over their development of nuclear weapons. Some business relations went on as usual though. Pakistan holds a very strategic position for countries or corporations wanting access to the oil and natural gas fields of the newly liberated former Soviet Republics of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, & Uzbekistan. If a Western power wanted to access these fields they would need to pipe these resources to a port where these things could be shipped back home. If you look at a globe there are only a few ways to pipe resources in this region to a port.
Piping through Russia, Iran or China would mean allowing them to control the flow of the oil and gas through their territory. The Iran & China option aren't even political realities. Russia would allow a pipeline but it would be very expensive and Russia would want it's share of the profit. None of these options would be very appealing to a Western company looking to make a profit. The only other way to get resources from this region would be to pipe them through Afghanistan & Pakistan to a port along the Pakistani or Indian coast of the Indian Ocean. But this all goes towards the motives for the events of 9/11. I'll leave that for another time and for now just say Pakistan is strategically important to the interests of the U.S.
Now back to the Pakistani history. In May of 1998 India, then Pakistan held live nuclear tests. The last thing the U.S. would want is a nuclear-armed, fundamentalist Islamic regime controlling the flow of our oil. In September of 1999, lieutenant-general Ziauddin Butt, director of the ISI held detailed meetings with the CIA and warned them about the 'fundamentalist' influence in the military. He had also warned about the growing threat of 'Talibanisation' in Pakistan." On October 12, 1999 General Pervez Musharraf launched a coup and ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif. He took control of Pakistan and pronounced himself chief executive. One of the key Generals in this overthrow was General Mahmoud Ahmad (GMA).3
According to this excellent TIME article GMA tipped off an OBL associate named, Ahmed al-Khadir who was wanted for the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995, and helped him escape into Afghanistan. 4
Let's go back in time for a moment. I am sure we all remember Mohammed Atta (MMA), the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. Here is part of a transcript posted on the Washington Post website of the 9/30/01 episode of ABC's "This Week" hosted by Sam Donaldson:
"As to September 11, federal authorities have now told ABC News they've tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan to two banks in Florida to accounts held by suspected hijack ringleader Mohammed Atta. As well this morning TIME magazine is reporting that some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama Bin Laden. It's all part of what has been a successful FBI effort so far to close in on the hijackers' high command, the money men, the planners, and the mastermind."
Here is an excerpt from the TIME report referred to as published on 10/08/01:
"Sources have told TIME that in the ten days prior to Sept. 11, Atta received at least two wire transfers from a man investigators have linked with bin Laden."1
The connections are convoluted by intention. The plotters covered their tracks well.
So ABC, the Washington Post and Time magazine (hardly fringe news sources) are all reporting that the FBI (or other federal authorities) are investigating who sent MMA this money under the assumption that it will lead to the ultimate planners of the attack. Another assumption being made is that this ultimate planner is Osama bin Laden (OBL).
According to this CNN report from 10/08/01 that man is Ahmed Umar Syed Shiekh (ASS):
"Freed with Ahzar was Ahmed Umar Syed Shiekh, whom authorities say used a pseudonym to wire $100,000 to suspected hijacker Mohammed Atta, who then distributed the money in the United States." 2
Remember that name. It will be written many ways (e.g., Ahmad Umar Shiekh, Omar Saeed Shiekh, Umar Shiekh), but they all refer to the same man. For simplicity, I just call him ASS. The CNN article is referring to India releasing ASS, along with Ahzer and another bad-guy, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar into Afghanistan in exchange for the hijacked passengers of Indian Airlines flight 814 on Dec. 31, 1999.
Here's another interesting thing in the CNN article:
"Indian authorities have also said that 1999 hijacking was done with the help of Pakistan's ISI or Intelligence Service." 2
The idea that Pakistan would not be acting in the best interests of India is not a big shocker, nor is the idea that India would try to make Pakistan look bad. India and Pakistan have been feuding since 1947 and are still at war with each other over the territory of the Kashmir mountains. The idea that the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) would help with the terrorist act of hijacking an airplane is of interest though. To paraphrase George W. Bush, "you are either with us or against us" and "those that harbor terrorists will be treated the same as the terrorists." Since the government of Pakistan is allied with the United States this would be something neither side would want loudly reported.
To put this in some context, here's a brief history of notable, recent geo-political events regarding Pakistan and the ISI:
It is well established that Pakistan was a major ally of the U.S. in the 80's during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The CIA would funnel money and arms to the ISI (Pakistan's CIA), the ISI would funnel this material to OBL and other mujaheddin fighters who would operate and train out of Pakistan. They would then cross over into Afghanistan to fight the Soviets to the great pleasure of our CIA.
Things went south in the 90's. After the Soviet defeat, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan over their development of nuclear weapons. Some business relations went on as usual though. Pakistan holds a very strategic position for countries or corporations wanting access to the oil and natural gas fields of the newly liberated former Soviet Republics of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, & Uzbekistan. If a Western power wanted to access these fields they would need to pipe these resources to a port where these things could be shipped back home. If you look at a globe there are only a few ways to pipe resources in this region to a port.
Piping through Russia, Iran or China would mean allowing them to control the flow of the oil and gas through their territory. The Iran & China option aren't even political realities. Russia would allow a pipeline but it would be very expensive and Russia would want it's share of the profit. None of these options would be very appealing to a Western company looking to make a profit. The only other way to get resources from this region would be to pipe them through Afghanistan & Pakistan to a port along the Pakistani or Indian coast of the Indian Ocean. But this all goes towards the motives for the events of 9/11. I'll leave that for another time and for now just say Pakistan is strategically important to the interests of the U.S.
Now back to the Pakistani history. In May of 1998 India, then Pakistan held live nuclear tests. The last thing the U.S. would want is a nuclear-armed, fundamentalist Islamic regime controlling the flow of our oil. In September of 1999, lieutenant-general Ziauddin Butt, director of the ISI held detailed meetings with the CIA and warned them about the 'fundamentalist' influence in the military. He had also warned about the growing threat of 'Talibanisation' in Pakistan." On October 12, 1999 General Pervez Musharraf launched a coup and ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif. He took control of Pakistan and pronounced himself chief executive. One of the key Generals in this overthrow was General Mahmoud Ahmad (GMA).3
According to this excellent TIME article GMA tipped off an OBL associate named, Ahmed al-Khadir who was wanted for the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995, and helped him escape into Afghanistan. 4
GMA was a known supporter of the Taliban.
"When the President (Musharraf) sent him (GMA) down to Kandahar last Sept. 17 to persuade Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to hand over bin Laden, the spymaster instead secretly told Omar to resist, an ex-Taliban official told Time."4
GMA arrived in Washington DC on September 4, 2001 for a week of meetings with his counterparts in the CIA. GMA was now the director of the ISI.
According to this NY Times article published September 13, 2001: "WASHINGTON, Sept. 12...The director of the Pakistani Interservices Intelligence, Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, who happened to be here on a regular visit of consultations, was called into the State Department today to meet with Deputy Secretary Richard L. Armitage."5
The NY Times doesn't make a big deal out of it but they do verify that GMA just "happened to be here" in DC on 9/12/01. Are they raising an eyebrow at us? When do you suppose he arrived in Washington DC? The article declines to say but the only air traffic flying the first few days after the attacks were taking OBL's family and Suadi royals out of the country.6 This means he had to have already been in DC before the attacks occurred.
But no need to speculate, this is confirmed in an interview with Porter Goss himself in this Washington Post article: "On the morning of Sept. 11, Goss and Graham were having breakfast with a Pakistani general named Mahmud Ahmed -- the soon-to-be-sacked head of Pakistan's intelligence service. Ahmed ran a spy agency notoriously close to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban."7
So now we know that ASS is sending the money to MMA. But what does this have to do with GMA eating breakfast with the chairmen of the House & Senate Intelligence Committees on the morning of September 11, 2001?
Here's an interesting clue. According to this NY Times article published March 19, 2002: "The government may have other reasons not to give up Mr. Sheikh (ASS), including reports that he has links to Pakistan's main intelligence agency."8
This article is referring to the fact that the Pakistani government had arrested ASS as "Ahmed Omar Sheikh, the main suspect in the killing of the American journalist Daniel Pearl" and their reluctance to release him to United States custody.8 That's right, the ASS that wired the money to MMA is the same man that supposedly beheaded the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl. I know this begs the question, "What exactly was Daniel Pearl investigating at the time of his capture?"
There is also this report for the British news agency, Guardian by Labour Party politician Michael Meacher: "This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit."9
So now we have a British politician claiming that an FBI director has verified that ASS sent the money to MMA on orders from GMA. Understandibly, this story hasn't made a big splash in the Western media. The only other place you will find this story is in the Pakistani newspaper, Dawn:
"NEW DELHI, Oct 8: Director General of Pakistan's Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmed has been replaced after the FBI investigators established credible links between him and Umar Sheikh, one of the three militants released in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999.
The FBI team, which had sought adequate inputs about various terrorists including Sheikh from the intelligence agencies, was working on the linkages between Sheikh and former ISI chief Gen Mahmud which are believed to have been substantiated, reports PTI website.
Informed sources said there were enough indications with the US intelligence agencies that it was at Gen Mahmud's instruction that Sheikh had transferred 100,000 US dollars into the account of Mohammed Atta, one of the lead terrorists in strikes at the World Trade Centre on Sept 11, it adds." 10
If that's not credible enough, there is also this report from Seymour Hersch in the New Yorker: "A senior military officer told me that because of the visas and other documentation needed to infiltrate team members into the United States a major foreign intelligence service might also have been involved."11
There is also this report in the Pittsburgh-Tribune: "Some believe that after the successes of the U.S. military, Saeed Sheikh has acted as a "go between" for the "tall man" — as bin-Laden is known — and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)."12...and there are always the words of Daniel Pearl's widow:
"We first came to Karachi four month's ago: September 12, 2001. We flew in from New Delhi.... We had witnessed the [911] attacks almost as they had happened on CNN ... We were here to ask the big questions: Who was responsible for the attacks? Who financed them? Who protected the terrorists?.... In October, the FBI were looking for a link between Omar Saeed Sheikh and the then director of the ISI, Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed. They wanted to know who instructed Omar to wire the $100,000 to Mohammed Atta. I read that Ahmed had been dismissed as head of the ISI by President Musharraf on October 7, 2001. So it appeared Omar may have associated with the head of ISI and Al Qaeda. He surrendered to another former ISI officer who held him in custody for a week until just one day before Musharraf met with President Bush.... Questions bounce back and forth in my brain like a Ping-Pong ball gone wild. The distinctions between good and bad, government organisations and terrorist organisations, are not simply fading: they seem to be faces of the same coin. Did Musharraf know Omar was in custody? Could he not know? The CIA (God only knows what their position is here) didn't know?" - Mariane Pearl, A Mighty Heart, Virago Press, 2003.
So the question now becomes, "Do the chairmen of our House & Senate Intelligence Committes know this General Mahmoud Ahmad has in the very least, strong links to Al-queda & the Taliban?" Of course they do. That is what they will say the whole breakfast meeting is about, terrorism & OBL.7 But the bigger question is, "Do they know he ordered ASS to send $100,000 to MMA?" We know what that answer will be- It just happens to be another one of those crazy coincidences that pop up when-ever investigating anything regarding the events of 9/11.
So what happened to all these characters? Well since Bob Graham & Porter Goss where in the position they were in, they were put in charge of the investigation and public hearings of the so-called "intelligence failures" surrounding 9/11. How convenient.
Bob Graham ran as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 (that obviously didn't work out)and currently serves as the Chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Perfect.
Porter Goss was appointed by George W. Bush as the new Director of the CIA in 2004 after George Tenet resigned due to all of those "intelligence failures." Really. He resigned in 2006 and is now living the life on the lecture circuit.
After General Mahmoud Ahmed was fired from his post as Director of the ISI for financing terrorism and 9/11, he has gone on to teach & preach with Tablighi Jamaat for the spiritual reform of Muslims. Wonderful.
As for Ahmed Umar Syed Shiekh, he nearly started a war in 2008 making prank phone calls from his prison cell posing as the Indian Foreign Minister in calls to the Pakistani President Zardari. Why isn't he dead yet? Read #12.
Depending on who you believe, Mohammed Atta is either still running around the middle-east incognito somewhere, in paradise with 70 virgins or rotting in the deepest bowels of hell. I refuse to speculate.
Smoking gun? Probably about as close as we will get. It depends on what Graham & Goss really knew as they sat eating breakfast with the Pakistani General that morning the towers came down.
1 TIME, Atta's Odyssey: How a shy, well-educated young Egyptian became a suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks. The mystery begins to unfold in Germany, By JOHN CLOUD, Oct. 8, 2001. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,10987,1000939,00.html
2 CNN.com, India wants terror spotlight on Kashmir, By Maria A. Ressa, October 8, 2001. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/10/08/india.ressa/
3 BBC News, Pakistan's coup: The 17-hour victory, November 11, 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/475195.stm
4 TIME, Rogues No More? By Tim McGirk, April 29, 2002.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501020506-233999,00.html#ixzz0dGoe3k6H
5 The New York Times, AFTER THE ATTACKS: THE DIPLOMACY; Powell Says It Clearly: No Middle Ground on Terrorism, By Jane Perlez, September 13, 2001. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/us/after-attacks-diplomacy-powell-says-it-clearly-no-middle-ground-terrorism.html?scp=1&sq=general++mahmoud+Ahmad&st=nyt
6 The Tampa Tribune, Phantom Flight From Florida, By Kathy Steele, Oct 5, 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20011108145853/http://www.tampatrib.com/MGA3F78EFSC.html
7 The Washington Post, A Cloak But No Dagger: An Ex-Spy Says He Seeks Solutions, Not Scapegoats for 9/11, By Richard Leiby, Saturday, May 18, 2002; Page C01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A36091-2002May17¬Found=true
8 The New York Times, A NATION CHALLENGED: THE OUTLOOK; Cloud Over Pakistan: Is Musharraf's Life Safe? By Raymond Bonner, March 19, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/19/world/a-nation-challenged-the-outlook-cloud-over-pakistan-is-musharraf-s-life-safe.html
9 Guardian, Britain now faces its own blowback: Intelligence interests may thwart the July bombings investigation, by Michael Meacher, September 10, 2005. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/10/terrorism.politics/print
10 Dawn, Gen Mahmud's exit due to links with Umar Sheikh, October 9, 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20011011083446/http://www.dawn.com/2001/10/09/top13.htm
11 The New Yorker, What Went Wrong: The C.I.A. and the failure of American intelligence. by Seymour M. Hersh, October 8, 2001. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/10/08/011008fa_FACT#ixzz0dIpfbT6T
12 Pittsburgh-Tribune, Did Pearl die because Pakistan decieved CIA? March 2, 2002. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_20141.html
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