The Buffalo News September 27, 2002
U.S. asks if local men knew attack was coming
By JERRY ZREMSKI
WASHINGTON - Federal authorities are investigating whether any of Lackawanna's terrorist suspects received al-Qaida training with "American Taliban" soldier John Walker Lindh in June 2001 - and whether they, like Lindh, were told of some sort of imminent attack on America.
Court documents in the two cases indicate that Lindh and the Lackawanna men were at Osama bin Laden's al-Farooq training camp in southern Afghanistan at the same time. And according to the federal government's complaint against Lindh, he "learned from one of his instructors that bin Laden had sent people to the United States to carry out several suicide operations."
While the FBI on Thursday declassified a June report saying it has found no one in the United States with foreknowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, there's still the possibility that the Lackawanna men knew that something dire might be in the works.
A source close to the investigation confirmed that federal agents wonder whether any of the Lackawanna men heard the same vague news about imminent suicide attacks that Lindh heard.
If they did, they returned to the United States without telling authorities about the planned attacks, which culminated in the deaths of 3,025 people at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and in rural Pennsylvania.
FBI and Justice Department officials refused to discuss the possibility that the Lackawanna suspects knew of some sort of attack, and defense attorneys said they didn't know whether their clients knew any useful information before Sept. 11.
But defense attorneys did express concern that Lindh, who is awaiting sentencing Oct. 4, might be providing information about the Lackawanna men as part of his plea agreement to cooperate with authorities.
Two of the Lackawanna men have told investigators they attended the al-Farooq camp, which Lindh also acknowledged attending. Much of the possible relationship between the men and Lindh remains a mystery, however - as does the al-Farooq camp itself.
What makes investigators curious is that Lindh and some of the Lackawanna men appear to have traveled very similar paths.
Lindh's indictment, which is based in part on an FBI interview with Lindh, indicates that Lindh stayed at a bin Laden guest house in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in late May or early June of last year.
The criminal complaint against five of the Lackawanna men indicates that two of them - Sahim Alwan and Jaber Elbaneh - also stayed at a guest house in Kandahar for four or five days at the end of May 2001.
The Lindh court documents, filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., say that the 20-year-old California native left Kandahar and arrived at the al-Farooq camp on or about June 1, 2001. About 20 other trainees, mostly from Saudi Arabia, accompanied him.
Lindh stayed at al-Farooq for a seven-week training course, in which he learned about weapons, explosives and battlefield combat, before joining al-Qaida's allies in the Taliban in their fight against Afghanistan's Northern Alliance.
Lindh told investigators that bin Laden visited the camp several times during his training to give speeches, and that on one occasion he and four others met with the terrorist leader for about five minutes.
Also, early in his stay, Lindh was told about bin Laden's plans for suicide attacks in the United States. According to Lindh's indictment, he was told that "bin Laden had sent forth some 50 people to carry out 20 suicide terrorist operations against the United States and Israel." That's far larger than what occurred Sept. 11: four attacks perpetrated by 19 terrorists.
Alwan left camp early
All of this was being told to Lindh at the same time that the FBI believes the Lackawanna men were at the al-Farooq camp. Court documents charge that in early June, Elbaneh and Alwan traveled to the al-Farooq camp, where they met several other Lackawanna men: Yahya A. Goba, Shafel A. Mosed, Yasein A. Taher, Mukhtar al-Bakri and Faysal H. Galab.
The criminal complaint said Mosed, Taher and Galab already had been in training for three to four weeks by that point, learning about firearms and mountain-climbing. All were supposed to complete a seven-week terror course - just as Lindh did - but Alwan left the camp early, in late June, and it's unclear when the others returned.
What's most unclear of all is what the Lackawanna men heard while they were at al-Farooq. Though Alwan and al-Bakri place themselves at the camp, the other suspects do not acknowledge that they've been to Afghanistan, much less admit to knowing anything about the Sept. 11 plot.
Authorities say, though, that just like Lindh, the Lackawanna men heard from bin Laden. Alwan told investigators that he saw all but one of his Lackawanna acquaintances at a speech in which bin Laden attacked America and Israel.
Oddly, the suspected ringleader of the Lackawanna group - Kamal Derwish - did not attend that speech. The indictment indicates that Derwish was in a more advanced training camp nearby.
While investigators are intrigued at the parallels between Lindh's travels and those of the Lackawanna men, it's entirely possible that they all attended the same camp at the same time without meeting each other.
Al-Bakri told investigators that there were about 200 people in the camp, divided into groups of 20, with each person there assigned a code name.
And terrorism experts said that's just part of al-Qaida's effort to ensure security at its camps.
Each camp has at least two names, and trainees usually stay in their small groups rather than mingling with everyone at the camp, said John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an organization that studies terrorist groups.
Told that investigators were wondering whether the Lackawanna suspects had heard the same terror warning that Lindh heard, Pike said, "That's certainly a reasonable question to ask."
Nevertheless, he said, "these aren't necessarily places where people meet each other and get to look in each other's faces."
Camp's location unknown
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III's declassification of a June report on the hijack attacks sheds no light on the Buffalo suspects, who were arrested two weeks ago.
The report says the suicide hijackers contacted "no known terrorist sympathizers" while in the United States. And the Lindh court papers don't allege that he had any detailed knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks - just that he learned at al-Farooq that some sort of attack was about to happen.
Pike said much about the al-Farooq camp remains in question. It's known to be west of Kandahar, but its precise location is unknown.
What little information there is about the camp comes from two sources: an al-Qaida video and an MSNBC reporter who visited the camp after U.S. forces bombed it early this year.
According to the New Republic, the recruitment video shows al-Qaida troops shooting anti-aircraft guns, detonating grenades and running an obstacle course. It also shows bin Laden firing rounds from an automatic rifle.
The MSNBC reporter, Preston Mendenhall, found a lot of rubble at the al-Farooq site, also known to U.S. intelligence as Meivand. He also found several notebooks in which students detailed the lessons they learned about the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Lawyers for some of the Buffalo defendants said their clients had not acknowledged being at the al-Farooq camp. They said they were aware, though, that Lindh might have been there at the same time - and might now be sharing information about the Lackawanna men with federal agents.
Lindh's plea deal calls for him to cooperate with federal authorities, and he might be doing just that in hopes of getting his sentence - currently set at 20 years - reduced. "Our sense is that that's what's going on," said Patrick J. Brown, Mosed's attorney.
A spokesman for James Brosnahan of San Francisco, who heads Lindh's legal team, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Copyright 1999 - 2002 - The Buffalo News
