SpyTalk<\/em>, the filing is a 21-page declaration by Don Canestraro, a lead investigator for the Office of Military Commissions, the legal body overseeing the cases of 9\/11 defendants. It summarizes classified government discovery disclosures, and private interviews he conducted with anonymous high-ranking CIA and FBI officials. Many agents who spoke to Canestraro headed up Operation Encore, the Bureau\u2019s aborted, long-running probe into Saudi government connections to the 9\/11 attack.<\/p>\nDespite conducting multiple lengthy interviews with a range of witnesses, producing hundreds of pages of evidence, formally investigating several Saudi officials, and launching a grand jury to probe a Riyadh-run US-based support network for the hijackers, Encore was abruptly terminated in 2016. This was purportedly due to a byzantine intra-FBI bust-up over investigative methods.<\/p>\n
When originally released in 2021 on the Office\u2019s public court docket, every part of the document was redacted except an \u201cunclassified\u201d marking. Given its explosive contents, it is not difficult to see why: as Canestraro\u2019s investigation concluded, at least two 9\/11 hijackers had been recruited either knowingly or unknowingly into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation which may have gone awry.<\/p>\n
\u2018A 50\/50 chance\u2019 of Saudi involvement<\/strong><\/p>\nIn 1996, Alec Station was created under the watch of the CIA. The initiative was supposed to comprise a joint investigative effort with the FBI. However, FBI operatives assigned to the unit soon found they were prohibited from passing any information to the Bureau\u2019s head office without the CIA\u2019s authorization, and faced harsh penalties for doing so. Efforts to share information with the FBI\u2019s equivalent unit \u2013 the I-49 squad based in New York \u2013 were repeatedly blocked.<\/p>\n
In late 1999, with \u201cthe system blinking red\u201d about an imminent large-scale Al Qaeda terror attack inside the US, the CIA and NSA were closely monitoring an \u201coperational cadre\u201d within an Al Qaeda cell that included the Saudi nationals Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. The pair would purportedly go on to hijack American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on 9\/11.<\/p>\n
Al-Hazmi and al-Midhar had attended an Al Qaeda summit that took place between January 5th and 8th 2000, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The meeting was secretly photographed and videotaped by local authorities at Alec Station\u2019s request although, apparently, no audio was captured. En route<\/em>, Mihdhar transited through Dubai, where CIA operatives broke into his hotel room and photocopied his passport. It showed that he possessed a multi-entry visa to the US.<\/p>\nA contemporaneous internal CIA cable stated this information was immediately passed to the FBI \u201cfor further investigation<\/em>.\u201d In reality, Alec Station not only failed to inform the Bureau of Mihdhar\u2019s US visa, but also expressly forbade two FBI agents assigned to the unit from doing so.<\/p>\n\u201c[I said] \u2018We\u2019ve got to tell the Bureau about this. These guys clearly are bad, we\u2019ve got to tell the FBI.\u2019 And then [the CIA] said to me, \u2018No, it\u2019s not the FBI\u2019s case, not the FBI\u2019s jurisdiction\u2019<\/em>,\u201d Mark Rossini, one of the FBI agents in question, has alleged. \u201cIf we had picked up the phone and called the Bureau, I would\u2019ve been violating the law. I would\u2019ve been removed from the building that day. I would\u2019ve had my clearances suspended, and I would be gone<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nOn January 15th, Hazmi and Mihdhar entered the US through Los Angeles International Airport, just weeks after the foiled Millennium plot. Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi government \u201cghost employee\u201d immediately met them at an airport restaurant. After a brief conversation, Bayoumi helped them find an apartment near his own in San Diego, co-signed their lease, set them up bank accounts, and gifted $1,500 towards their rent. The three would have multiple contacts moving forward.<\/p>\n
In interviews with Operation Encore<\/em> investigators years later, Bayoumi alleged his run-in with the two would-be hijackers was mere happenstance. His extraordinary practical and financial support was, he claimed, simply charitable, motivated by sympathy for the pair, who could barely speak English and were unfamiliar with Western culture.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/911-2.jpg\")
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The Bureau disagreed, concluding Bayoumi was a Saudi spy, who handled a number of Al Qaeda operatives in the US. They also considered there to be a \u201c50\/50 chance<\/em>\u201d he \u2013 and by extension Riyadh \u2013 had detailed advance knowledge of the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\nThat remarkable finding wasn\u2019t known publicly until two decades later, when a tranche of Operation Encore<\/em> documents were declassified upon the Biden administration\u2019s orders, and it was completely ignored by the mainstream media. Don Canestraro\u2019s declaration now reveals FBI investigators went even further in their assessments.<\/p>\nA Bureau special agent, dubbed \u201cCS-3<\/em>\u201d in the document, stated Bayoumi\u2019s contact with the hijackers and support thereafter \u201cwas done at the behest of the CIA through the Saudi intelligence service<\/em>.\u201d Alec Station\u2019s explicit purpose was to \u201crecruit Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar via a liaison relationship<\/em>\u201d, with the assistance of Riyadh\u2019s General Intelligence Directorate.<\/p>\nA most \u2018unusual\u2019 CIA unit<\/strong><\/p>\nAlec Station\u2019s formal remit was to track bin Laden, \u201ccollect intelligence on him, run operations against him, disrupt his finances, and warn policymakers about his activities and intentions<\/em>.\u201d These activities would naturally entail enlisting informants within Al Qaeda.<\/p>\nNonetheless, as several high level sources told Canestraro, it was extremely \u201cunusual<\/em>\u201d for such an entity to be involved in gathering intelligence and recruiting assets. The US-based unit was run by CIA analysts, who do not typically manage human assets. Legally, that work is the exclusive preserve of case officers \u201ctrained in covert operations<\/em>\u201d and based overseas.<\/p>\n\u201cCS-10<\/em>\u201d, a CIA case officer within Alec Station, concurred with the proposition that Hazmi and Mihdhar enjoyed a relationship with the CIA through Bayoumi, and was baffled that the unit was tasked with attempting to penetrate Al Qaeda in the first place. They felt it \u201cwould be nearly impossible to develop informants inside<\/em>\u201d the group, given the \u201cvirtual\u201d station was based in a Langley basement, \u201cseveral thousand miles from the countries where Al Qaeda was suspected of operating<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cCS-10<\/em>\u201d further testified that they \u201cobserved other unusual activities<\/em>\u201d at Alec Station. Analysts within the unit \u201cwould direct operations to case officers in the field by sending the officers cables instructing them to do a specific tasking<\/em>,\u201d which was \u201ca violation of CIA procedures<\/em>.\u201d Analysts \u201cnormally lacked the authority to direct a case officer to do anything<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cCS-11<\/em>\u201d, a CIA operations specialist posted to Alec Station \u201csometime prior to the 9\/11 attacks<\/em>\u201d said they likewise \u201cobserved activity that appeared to be outside normal CIA procedures<\/em>.\u201d Analysts within the unit \u201cmostly stuck to themselves and did not interact frequently<\/em>\u201d with others. When communicating with one another through internal cables, they also used operational pseudonyms, which \u201cCS-11<\/em>\u201d described as peculiar, as they were not working undercover, \u201cand their employment with the CIA was not classified information.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\nThe unit\u2019s unusual operational culture may explain some of the stranger decisions made during this period vis a vis<\/em> Al Qaeda informants. In early 1998, while on a CIA mission to penetrate London\u2019s Islamist scene, a joint FBI-CIA informant named Aukai Collins received a stunning offer: bin Laden himself wanted him to go to Afghanistan so they could meet.<\/p>\nCollins relayed the request to his superiors. While the FBI was in favor of infiltrating Al Qaeda\u2019s base, his CIA handler nixed the idea, saying, \u201cthere was no way the US would approve an American operative going undercover into Bin Laden\u2019s camps<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nSimilarly, in June 2001, CIA and FBI analysts from Alec Station met with senior Bureau officials, including representatives of its own Al Qaeda unit. The CIA shared three photos of people who attended the Kuala Lumpur meeting 18 months earlier, including Hazmi and Mihdhar. However, as an FBI counter-terror officer codenamed \u201cCS-15<\/em>\u201d recalled, the dates of the photos and key details about the figures they depicted were not revealed. Instead, the analysts simply asked if the FBI \u201cknew the identities of the persons in the photos<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nAnother FBI official present, \u201cCS-12<\/em>\u201d, offers an even more damning account. The Alec Station analysts not only failed to offer biographical information, but falsely implied one of the individuals might be Fahd Al-Quso, a suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole. What\u2019s more, they outright refused to answer any questions related to the photographs. Nonetheless, it was confirmed that no system was in place to alert the FBI if any of the three entered the US \u2013 a \u201cstandard investigative technique<\/em>\u201d for terror suspects.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/911-3-e1687286643982.jpg\")
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Given Hazmi and Mihdhar appeared to be simultaneously working for Alec Station in some capacity, the June 2001 meeting may well have been a dangle. No intelligence value could be extracted from inquiring whether the Bureau knew who their assets were, apart from ascertaining if the FBI\u2019s counter-terror team was aware of their identities, physical appearances, and presence in the US.<\/p>\n
Quite some coverup<\/strong><\/p>\nAnother of Canestraro\u2019s sources, a former FBI agent who went by \u201cCS-23<\/em>,\u201d testified that after 9\/11, FBI headquarters and its San Diego field office quickly learned of \u201cBayoumi\u2019s affiliation with Saudi intelligence and subsequently the existence of the CIA\u2019s operation to recruit<\/em>\u201d Hazmi and Mihdhar.<\/p>\nHowever, \u201csenior FBI officials suppressed investigations<\/em>\u201d into these matters. \u201cCS-23<\/em>\u201d alleged, furthermore, that Bureau agents testifying before the Joint Inquiry into 9\/11 \u201cwere instructed not to reveal the full extent of Saudi involvement with Al-Qaeda.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\nThe US intelligence community would have had every reason to shield Riyadh from scrutiny and consequences for its role in the 9\/11 attacks, as it was then one of its closest allies. But the FBI\u2019s eager complicity in Alec Station\u2019s coverup may have been motivated by self-interest, as one of its own was intimately involved in the unit\u2019s effort to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar, and conceal their presence in the US from relevant authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cCS-12<\/em>\u201d, who attended the June 2001 meeting with Alec Station, told Canestraro that they \u201ccontinued to press FBI Headquarters for further information regarding the subjects in the photographs<\/em>\u201d over that summer. On August 23rd, they stumbled upon an \u201celectronic communication<\/em>\u201d from FBI headquarters, which identified Hazmi and Mihdhar, and noted they were in the US.<\/p>\n\u201cCS-12<\/em>\u201d then contacted the FBI analyst within Alec Station who authored the communication. The conversation quickly became \u201cheated<\/em>\u201d, with the analyst ordering them to delete the memo \u201cimmediately<\/em>\u201d as they were not authorized to view it. While unnamed in the declaration, the FBI analyst in question was Dina Corsi.<\/p>\nThe next day, on a conference call between \u201cCS-12<\/em>\u201d, Corsi, and the FBI\u2019s bin Laden unit chief, \u201cofficials at FBI headquarters<\/em>\u201d explicitly told \u201cCS-12<\/em>\u201d to \u201cstand down<\/em>\u201d and \u201ccease looking<\/em>\u201d for Mihdhar, as the Bureau intended to open an \u201cintelligence gathering investigation<\/em>\u201d on him. The next day, \u201cCS-12<\/em>\u201d emailed Corsi, stating bluntly \u201csomeone is going to die<\/em>\u201d unless Mihdhar was pursued criminally.<\/p>\nIt was surely no coincidence that two days later, on August 26th, Alec Station finally informed the FBI that Hazmi and Mihdhar were in the US. By then, the pair had entered the final phase of preparations for the impending attacks. If a criminal probe had been opened, they could have been stopped in their tracks. Instead, as foreshadowed by the officials in contact with \u201cCS-12<\/em>,\u201d an intelligence investigation was launched which hindered any search efforts.<\/p>\nIn the days immediately after the 9\/11 attacks, \u201cCS-12<\/em>\u201d and other New York-based FBI agents participated in another conference call with Bureau headquarters. During the conversation, they learned Hazmi and Mihdhar were named on Flight 77\u2019s manifest. One analyst on the line ran the pair\u2019s names through \u201ccommercial databases<\/em>,\u201d quickly finding them and their home address listed in San Diego\u2019s local phone directory. It turned out they had been living with an FBI informant.<\/p>\n\u201cCS-12<\/em>\u201d soon contacted Corsi \u201cregarding information on the hijackers<\/em>.\u201d She responded by providing a photograph from the same surveillance operation that produced the three pictures presented at the June 2001 meeting between Alec Station and FBI agents; they depicted Walid bin Attash, a lead suspect in Al Qaeda\u2019s 1998 East Africa US Embassy bombings and its attack on the USS Cole<\/em>.<\/p>\nCorsi was unable to explain why the photo was not shown to FBI agents earlier. If it had been, \u201cCS-12<\/em>\u201d claims they would have \u201cimmediately linked<\/em>\u201d Hazmi and Mihdhar to bin Attash, which \u201cwould have shifted from an intelligence based investigation into a criminal investigation<\/em>.\u201d The FBI\u2019s New York field office could have then devoted its \u201cfull resources<\/em>\u201d to finding the hijackers before the fateful day of September 11, 2001.<\/p>\nAlec Station operatives fail upwards<\/strong><\/p>\nAlec Station\u2019s tireless efforts to protect its Al Qaeda assets raises the obvious question of whether Hazmi and Mihdhar, and possibly other hijackers, were in effect working for the CIA on the day of 9\/11.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/911-4.jpg\")
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The real motives behind the CIA\u2019s stonewalling may never be known. But it appears abundantly clear that Alec Station did not want the FBI to know about or interfere in its secret intelligence operation. If the unit\u2019s recruitment of Hazmi and Mihdhar was purely dedicated to information gathering, rather than operational direction, it is incomprehensible that the FBI had not been apprised of it, and was instead actively misdirected.<\/p>\n
Several FBI sources consulted by Canestraro speculated that the CIA\u2019s desperation to penetrate Al Qaeda prompted it to grant Alec Station the power to recruit assets, and pressured it to do so. But if this were truly the case, then why did Langley refuse the opportunity to send Aukai Collins \u2013 a proven deep cover asset who had infiltrated several Islamist gangs \u2013 to penetrate bin Laden\u2019s network in Afghanistan?<\/p>\n
One alternative explanation is that Alec Station, a powerful rogue CIA team answerable and accountable to no one, sought to infiltrate the terror group for its own sinister purposes, without the authorization and oversight usually required by Langley in such circumstances. Given that Collins was a joint asset shared with the FBI, he could not be trusted to participate in such a sensitive black operation.<\/p>\n
No member of Alec Station has been punished in any way for the supposed \u201cintelligence failures<\/em>\u201d that allowed 9\/11 to go ahead. In fact, they have been rewarded. Richard Blee, the unit\u2019s chief at the time of the attacks, and his successor Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, both joined the CIA\u2019s operations division, and became highly influential figures in the so-called war on terror. Corsi, for her part, was promoted at the FBI, eventually rising to the rank of Deputy Assistant Director for Intelligence.<\/p>\nIn a perverse twist, the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s report on the CIA\u2019s torture program found that Bikowsky had been a key player in the agency\u2019s black site machinations, and one of their chief public apologists. It is increasingly clear that the program was specifically concerned with eliciting false testimony from suspects in order to justify and expand the US war on terror.<\/p>\n
The public\u2019s understanding of the 9\/11 attacks is heavily informed by testimonies delivered by CIA torture victims under the most extreme duress imaginable. And Bikowsky, a veteran of the Alec Station that ran cover for at least two would-be 9\/11 hijackers, had been in charge of interrogating the alleged perpetrators of the attacks.<\/p>\n
The veteran FBI deep cover agent Aukai Collins concluded his memoir with a chilling reflection which was only reinforced by Don Canestraro\u2019s bombshell declaration:<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very mistrustful about the fact that bin Laden\u2019s name was mentioned literally hours after the attack. I became very skeptical about anything anybody said about what happened, or who did it. I thought back to when I was still working for them and we had the opportunity to enter Bin Laden\u2019s camp. Something just hadn\u2019t smelled right. To this day I\u2019m unsure who was behind September 11, nor can I even guess. Someday the truth will reveal itself, and I have a feeling that people won\u2019t like what they hear<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
yogaesoteric
\nJune 20, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least two 9\/11 hijackers had been recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation that was covered up at the highest level, according to an explosive recent court filing. A recently released court filing raises grave questions about the relationship between Alec Station, a CIA unit set up to track Al Qaeda chief Osama bin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-sponsored-terror-in-the-world-3480-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124186,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124173\/revisions\/124186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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