As the US slouches toward War with not just Syria but also Iran , don't forget the past ! And recalling what has come before is essential to defeat what is being planned.....Recall how the Saudis were deeply involved in 9-11 and the US completely looked the other way - incompetence or complicity by the US ? I think we also recall Iraq WMD , Curveball and the lies that got the US and UK into Iraq.....
http://fredw-catharsisours.blogspot.com/2013/04/after-all-of-these-years-fbi-report.html
http://fredw-catharsisours.blogspot.com/2013/04/after-all-of-these-years-fbi-report.html
After all of these years , an FBI Report states what we have always known - the Saudis were knee deep in 9-11 and the US has and will continue to cover that up.......
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-04-29/fbi-report-implicates-saudi-government-911
Submitted by George Washington on 04/29/2013 17:01 -0400
FBI Report Implicates Saudi Government in 9/11
Contrary to the official narrative, 9/11 was state-sponsored terror. The only question is which state sponsored it.
A 9/11 Commissioner and Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 say in sworn declarations that the Saudi government is linked to the 9/11 attacks.
This week, the Miami Herald provided more evidence of a Saudi link:
A Saudi family who “fled” their Sarasota area home weeks before 9/11 had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001,” according to newly released FBI records.One partially declassified document, marked “secret,” lists three of those individuals and ties them to the Venice, Fla., flight school where suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained. Accomplice Ziad Jarrah took flying lessons at another school a block away.Atta and al-Shehhi were at the controls of the jetliners that slammed into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people. Jarrah was the hijacker-pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania.The names, addresses and dates of birth of the three individuals tied to the flight school were blanked out before the records were released toBrowardBulldog.org amid ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation.The information in the documents runs counter to previous FBI statements. It also adds to concerns raised by official investigations but never fully explored, that the full truth about Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 attacks has not yet been told.***The documents are the first released by the FBI about its once-secret probe in Sarasota. Information contained in the documents flatly contradicts prior statements by FBI agents in Miami and Tampa who have said the investigation found no evidence connecting the al-Hijjis to the hijackers or the 9/11 plot.Concerned residents in the gated community of Prestancia tipped the FBI, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, to the al-Hijjis’ sudden departure in late August 2001. The family left behind three cars, clothes, furniture, diapers, toys, food and other items.[A] counterterrorism officer and Prestancia’s former administrator, Larry Berberich, both said an analysis of gatehouse security records — log books and snapshots of license tags — had determined that vehicles either driven by or carrying several of the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home.Phone records revealed similar, though indirect, ties to the hijackers, said the counterterrorism officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.***An April 16, 2002, FBI report says “repeated citizen calls” led to an inspection of the home by agents of the Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force.***That person and a second individual were said to be flight students at Huffman Aviation — the flight school at the Venice Municipal Airport attended by hijackers Atta and al-Shehhi.The third person on the list “lived with flight students at Huffman Aviation” and was “arrested numerous times by the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office,” the report says.***A notice on the document indicates the censored information regarding the three individuals associated with the terrorist attacks isscheduled to remain classified for another 25 years — until March 14, 2038.***Al-Hijji, who following 9/11 worked for the Saudi oil company Aramco in England, could not be reached by phone or email last week. Aramco staff said there was no longer anyone by that name in the London office.***The FBI documents also disclose that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., queried Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller about the Sarasota investigation six days after its existence was disclosed in Broward Bulldog/Miami Herald story.***Similarly, Weich denied an assertion by then Sen. Bob Graham of Florida that the FBI had not turned over its Sarasota records to Congress. The bureau, he stated, made all of its records available and suggested they may have been overlooked by investigators.The documents the FBI has released do not mention other known aspects of the Sarasota investigation, including information provided to the FBI by al-Hijji’s former friend, Wissam Hammoud.Hammoud, 47, is a federal prisoner classified by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons as an “International Terrorist Associate.” He is serving a 21-year sentence for weapons violations and attempting to kill a federal agent and a witness in a previous case against him.[S]hortly after his 2004 arrest, Hammoud told agents that al-Hijji considered Osama bin Laden a “hero,” may have known some of the hijackers, and once introduced Hammoud to fugitive al-Qaeda leader and ex-Miramar resident Adnan Shukrijumah.When reached last year, al-Hijji acknowledged having known Hammoud well. He did not, however, respond to a question about Hammoud’s allegations and said Shukrijumah’s name did not “ring a bell.”***Other FBI documents about Sarasota are known to exist, but were not released, including a report Graham says he read last year but can’t discuss because it is classified.The [Broward] Bulldog’s FOIA lawsuit asks U.S. District Judge William Zloch to order the FBI to produce all records of its Sarasota investigation, including the records seen by Graham.
The Daily Beast reported last year:
The FBI-led investigation in Sarasota reportedly focused on Saudi millionaire Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud. Their upscale home was owned by Anoud al-Hijji’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, an adviser to Prince Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the nephew of King Fahd.
An FBI informant hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000. Specifically, investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry discoveredthat an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House. As the New York Times notes:
Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of covering up evidence ….The accusation stems from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s refusal to allow investigators for a Congressional inquiry and the independent Sept. 11 commission to interview an informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who had been the landlord in San Diego of two Sept. 11 hijackers.
The 2 hijackers were Saudis. Indeed, 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.
The Daily Beast reported last year:
In San Diego, allegations of links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers revolve around two enigmatic Saudi men: Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, both of whom have long since left the United States.Al-Bayoumi had previously worked for the Saudi government in civil aviation (a part of the Saudi defense department), and was alleged by many San Diego Muslims to be an agent for the Saudi government who reported on the activities of Saudi-born students living in Southern California.In early 2000, al-Bayoumi invited two of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, to San Diego from Los Angeles. He told authorities he met the two men by chance when he sat next to them at a restaurant.As Newsweek reported in 2002, al-Bayoumi’s invitation was extended on the same day that he visited the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles for a private meeting.Al-Bayoumi arranged for the two future hijackers to live in an apartment near the San Diego Islamic Center mosque and paid $1,500 to cover their first two months of rent.When asked not long after the 9/11 attacks about al-Bayoumi’s possible involvement, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore, then the San Diego head of the FBI, told this reporter that there was no evidence al-Bayoumi played a role.But a former top FBI official later told Newsweek, “We firmly believed that [al-Bayoumi] had knowledge [of the 9/11 plot].”After 9/11, al-Bayoumi was detained by New Scotland Yard while living in the U.K. Gore said the FBI sent agents to London to interview him, but he was released a week later and allowed to return to Saudi Arabia.Newsweek reported that classified sections of the congressional 9/11 inquiry indicated that the Saudi Embassy in London pushed for al-Bayoumi’s release.Where is al-Bayoumi now? “I can’t say too much, but what I can tell you is that he is still alive and living in Saudi Arabia,” says Graham.As for Basnan, whom Graham calls “Bayoumi’s successor,” Newsweekreported that he received monthly checks for several years totaling as much as $73,000 from the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, and his wife, Princess Haifa Faisal.The checks were sent because Basnan’s wife, Majeda Dweikat, needed thyroid surgery, Newsweekand other media outlets reported. But Dweikat inexplicably signed many of the checks over to al-Bayoumi’s wife, Manal Bajadr. This money allegedly made its way into the hands of hijackers Almihdhar and Alhazmi, according to the congressional report.At a post-9/11 gathering in San Diego, Basnan allegedly called the attack “a wonderful, glorious day” and celebrated the hijackers’ “heroism,” a law-enforcement official told Newsweek.Despite all this, he was ultimately allowed to return to Saudi Arabia ….Another man who might have helped investigators get to the bottom of this mystery is Abdussattar Shaikh, a longtime FBI asset in San Diego who was friends with al-Bayoumi and invited two of the San Diego-based hijackers to live in his home.However, Shaikh was not allowed by the FBI or the Bush administration to testify before the 9/11 Commission or the JICI.“For me, that was the low point of the [JICI] investigation,” says Graham. “Bayoumi introduced the hijackers to Shaikh, who clearly knew a lot, but the FBI, who had Shaikh in protective custody, seemed to care more about protecting their asset than allowing us to find out what he knew about 9/11.”During roughly the same period after the 9/11 attacks, San Diego FBI agent Steven Butler alerted his superiors about a flow of money from Saudi government officials that had made its way into the hands of two of the San Diego-based hijackers, according to U.S. News & World Report. But the warning was ignored.“Butler is claiming that people [in the FBI] didn’t follow up,” a congressional source told U.S. News & World Report. Another congressional source told U.S. News: “Butler saw a pattern, a trail, and he told his supervisors, but it ended there.”The investigation into the Saudi government’s alleged connections to the hijackers seemed to end there. Arguably the greatest crime mystery of our time has become a cold case.***[The Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham] believes the Bush administration protected the Saudis during the 9/11 inquiry [and] wonders why the Obama administration hasn’t reopened the investigation and sought answers.“Perhaps they feel that we can’t afford to irritate the Saudis, especially with oil prices going up now,” he says. “I don’t know. Someday, I do believe we will get to the bottom of 9/11 and the Saudi government connections.”
Indeed, a U.S. congressman for 6 years, who is now a talking head on MSNBC (Joe Scarborough) says that – even if the Saudi government backed the 9/11 attacks – Saudi oil is too important to do anything about it:
Why does 9-11 matter today ( apart from don't we as Americans want to deal with the truth , I mean really ? ) ......... IF the US truly believed Bin Laden did
9 - 11 , explain what is set forth below......
Report: U.S. Government and NATO Worked with Bin Laden and His Top Lieutenant 3 Months AFTER 9/11
Washington’s Blog
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013
Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has been deemed credible by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, several senators (free subscription required), and a coalition of prominent conservative and liberal groups.
The ACLU described Edmonds as:
The most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.
And famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says that Edmonds possesses information “far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers”.
Edmonds translated terror-related communications for the FBI right after 9/11. In that capacity, she read communications between terrorists and other radicals.
Edmonds said last week that Bin Laden – and his number 2 Al Qaeda lieutenant – Ayman al-Zawahiri – worked with the U.S. government for 3 months after 9/11 to coordinate destablization in the Caucus region:
By way of background, the former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism.
As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security” (and see this)(Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred).
This was codenamed “Operation Gladio”. And watch this BBC special. And see this for background.
Edmonds says that some portions of Operation Gladio are continuing to this day, and that Ayman al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden worked for NATO and the Pentagon as part of Operation Gladio:
Edmonds told us:
For the past 11 years I have been emphasizing that my State Secrets Privilege & Gag Orders had to do with the FBI files (covering period 1996-2002 February) on covert-terrorist operations in Caucasus and Central Asia backed, managed and armed by US actors. These US-NATO directed operations in the region involved Bin-Laden and mainly Zawahiri …..The FBI documents contained damning evidence (audio and written) collected between 1996-2002 tying these terror operations directly to the U.S. persons in the State Department/CIA and Pentagon. Also, how the State Department got Congress to grant huge amounts of funds to “front’ NGOs and businesses (mainly Turkish companies in US-listed/members of ATC) to funnel money to the terrorist cells in this region.
If this sounds crazy, please remember that the former U.S. National Security Adviser (and a top Obama foreign policy adviser) admitted that the U.S. created, organized and armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan – including Bin Laden – to fight the Soviets. (The Mujahadeen eventually morphed into Al Qaeda.)
And the same National Security Adviser wrote a book in 1997 saying that the Caucasus and Central Asian regions – the same 2 regions which Edmonds told us that NATO and the U.S. deployed Zawahiri and Bin-Laden to influence – were the key to geopolitical power. For example, he wrote:
- The Eurasian Balkans include nine countries that one way or another fit the foregoing description [of regions vital for the U.S. to control] (p.124)
- “[The Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.” (p.124)
- “Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power.”- (p. xiii)
- “It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)
And the U.S. has backed the most dangerous and radical Muslim terrorists for decades.
And the mainstream French paper Le Figaro alleged that the CIA met with Bin Laden 2 months before 9/11.
And 9/11 Commissioners admit that they never got to the bottom of 9/11. For example:
- 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says “I don’t believe for a minute we got everything right”, that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, and that the 9/11 debate should continue
- 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn’t have access . . . .” He also says thatit might take “a permanent 9/11 commission” to end the remaining mysteries of September 11
Related Articles
Let's see what was going on in the world for the three months after 9-11 ......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)
September 11 2001 Attacks
Main article: September 11 attacks
On September 9, 2001, Massoud, then aged 48, was critically wounded in a suicide attack by two Arabs posing as journalists, who detonated a bomb hidden in their video camera during an interview in Khoja Bahauddin, in the Takhar Province of Afghanistan.[64][65]Massoud died in the helicopter taking him to a hospital. The funeral, held in a rural area, was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourning Afghans. International experts and members of the United Front, such as Amrullah Saleh, feared that without Massoud, the anti-Taliban resistance would not succeed.
On the morning of 11 September 2001, al-Qaeda carried out four coordinated attacks on U.S. soil. Four commercial passenger jet airliners were hijacked.[66][67] The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center inNew York City, killing everyone on board and thousands working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours from fire damage related to the crashes, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into thePentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, in ruralPennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C to target the White House, or the U.S. Capitol. No flights had survivors.
Nearly 3,000 people, including the 19 hijackers, died in the attacks.[68] According to the New York State Health Department, 836 responders, including firefighters and police personnel, have died as of June 2009.[68]
[edit]Legal basis for war
On 14 September 2001, Congress passed legislation titled Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, which was signed on 18 September 2001, by both President Bush and Congress. It authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration, for its part, did not seek a declaration of war by the U.S. Senate, and labeled Taliban troops as supporters of terrorists rather than soldiers. It thus defined them as outside the protections of the Geneva Convention anddue process of law. This position was later overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008, following other decisions that overturned some Bush executive positions in the war on terror.[69] Military lawyers responsible for prosecuting detainees also had questioned some of the policies, and such internal disagreements were revealed years later in the press.[70]
The United Nations Charter, to which all the Coalition countries are signatories, provides that all UN member states must settle their international disputes peacefully and no member nation can use military force except in self-defense. The U.S. Constitution states that international treaties, such as the United Nations Charter, that are ratified by the U.S. are part of the law of the land, though subject to effective repeal by any subsequent act of the U.S. Congress (i.e., the "leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant" or "last in time" canon of statutory interpretation).[71] The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) did not authorize the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom).
Defenders of the legitimacy of the U.S.-led invasion argue that U.N. Security Council authorization was not required since the invasion was an act of collective self-defense provided for under Article 51 of the UN Charter, and not a war of aggression.[71][72] Critics maintain that the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan were not legitimate self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter because the 9/11 attacks were not “armed attacks” by another state, but were perpetrated by non-state actors. They said these attackers had no proven connection to Afghanistan or the Taliban rulers. Such critics have said that, even if a state had made the 9/11 attacks, no bombing campaign would constitute self-defense. They interpreted self-defense to be actions that were "instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation."[71]
On 20 December 2001, more than two months after the U.S.-led attack began, the UNSC authorized the creation of an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to take all measures necessary to fulfill its mandate of assisting the Afghan Interim Authority in maintaining security.[73] Command of the ISAF passed to NATO on 11 August 2003, following the US invasion of Iraq in March of that year.[74]
[edit]The case for war
On September 11, the Taliban's foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, "denounce[d] the terrorist attack, whoever is behind it."[75] The following day, President Bush called the attacks more than just "acts of terror" but "acts of war" and resolved to pursue and conquer an "enemy" that would no longer be safe in "its harbors."[76] The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef said on September 13 that the Taliban would consider extraditing bin Laden if there was solid evidence linking him to the attacks.[77]Though in 2004, Osama bin Laden eventually took responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, he denied having any involvement in a statement issued on September 17 and by interview on September 29.[78][79]
The State Department, in a memo dated September 14, demanded that the Taliban surrender all known al-Qaeda associates in Afghanistan, provide intelligence on him and his affiliates, and expel all terrorists from Afghanistan.[81] On September 18, the director of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, Mahmud Ahmed conveyed these demands to Mullah Omar and the senior Taliban leadership, whose response was "not negative on all points."[82] Mahmoud reported that the Taliban leadership was in "deep introspection" and waiting for the recommendation of a grand council of religious clerics that was assembling to decide the matter.[82] On September 20, President Bush, in an address to Congress, demanded the Taliban deliver Osama bin Laden and destroy bases of al Qaeda.[83]
The same day, a grand council of over 1,000 Muslim clerics from across Afghanstan, which had convened at the request of the Taliban leadership to decide the fate of bin Laden, issued a fatwa, expressing sadness for the deaths in the 9/11 attacks, urging bin Laden to leave their country, and calling on the United Nations and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperationto conduct an independent investigation of "recent events to clarify the reality and prevent harassment of innocent people."[84] The fatwa went on to warn that should the United States not agree with its decision and invade Afghanistan, "jihad becomes an order for all Muslims."[84] White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer rejected the response, saying the time for talk had ended and it was time for action.[85]
On September 21, Taliban representatives in Pakistan reacted to the U.S. response with defiance.[86] Zaeef said the Taliban were ready, if necessary, for war with the United States.[86] His deputy Suhail Shaheen, warned that a U.S. invasion would share in the same fate that befell Great Britain and the Soviet Union in previous centuries.[86] Zaeef reiterated the demand for evidence of bin Laden's involvement in the 9/11 attacks.[86] "If the Americans provide evidence, we will cooperate with them, but they do not provide evidence," he said.[86] "In America, if I think you are a terrorist, is it properly justified that you should be punished without evidence?" he asked.[86] "This is an international principle. If you use the principle, why do you not apply it to Afghanistan?"[86] On September 23, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told NBC's Meet the Press that the U.S. government would, "in the near future" release "a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence . . . linking [bin Laden] to this attack."[87] The evidence was not made public but instead shown to Pakistan's government whose leaders stated on October 4 that the materials they had seen "provide[d] sufficient basis for indictment in a court of law."[88]
On September 24, ISI Director Mahmoud told U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan that while the Taliban was "weak and ill-prepared to face the American onslaught", "real victory will come through negotiations" for if the Taliban were eliminated, Afghanistan would revert to warlordism.[89] On September 28, he led a delegation of eight Pakistani religious leaders to persuade Mullah Omar to accept having religious leaders from Islamic countries examine the evidence and decide bin Laden's fate.[90] Mullah Omar was noncommittal.[90] The U.S. government remained opposed to any negotiations with the Taliban.[90]
Meanwhile the U.S. Department of Defense under Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was exploring ways to broaden the military response beyond Afghanistan.[91] In a memo to President Bush on September 30, Rumsfeld argued "finding a few hundred terrorists in the caves of Afghanistan," was not the U.S. government's "strong suit" which should instead use "the vastness of our military and humanitarian resources," to strengthen the domestic opposition in "terrorist-supporting states" and achieve regime change in "Afghanistan and another key State (or two) that supports terrorism."[91]
On October 1, Mullah Omar agreed to a proposal by Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the head of Pakistan's most important Islamic party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, to have bin Laden taken to Pakistan where he would be held under house arrest in Peshawar and tried by an international tribunal.[92] But Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf blocked the plan because he could not guarantee bin Laden's safety.[92] On October 2, Zaeef appealed the United States to negotiate, "We do not want to compound the problems of the people, the country or the region."[93] He pleaded, "the Afghan people need food, need aid, need shelter, not war."[93] The U.S. government refused to negotiate and instead focused on building a new government around former Afghan King Zahir Shah.[93] British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the Taliban to "surrender the terrorists or surrender power."[94]Mullah Omar warned that unlike the former King's government which was overthrown in 1973 and surrendered, the Taliban "would just retreat to the mountains" and continue to fight.[93]
On October 5, the Taliban offered to try bin Laden in an Afghan court, so long as the U.S. provided what it called "solid evidence" of his guilt.[95]The U.S. government dismissed the request for proof as "request for delay or prevarication"; NATO commander George Robertson said the evidence was "clear and compelling."[94] On October 7, as the U.S. aerial bombing campaign began, President Bush ignored questions about the Taliban's offer and said instead "Full warning had been given, and time is running out."[96] The same day, the State Department gave the Pakistani government one last message to the Taliban: Hand over all al-Qaeda leaders or "every pillar of the Taliban regime will be destroyed."[97]
A week into the bombing campaign, on October 14, Abdul Kabir, the Taliban's third ranking leader, offered to hand over bin Laden if the U.S. government provided evidence of his guilt and halted the bombing campaign. President Bush rejected the offer as non-negotiable.[98] On October 16, Muttawakil, the Taliban foreign minister, dropped the condition to see evidence and offered to send bin Laden to a third country in return for a halt to the bombing.[99] US officials also rejected this offer.[100] At that time, some Afghan experts said the United States failed to recognize the Taliban's need for a "face saving formula."[101] In 2007, bin Laden indicated that the Taliban had no knowledge of his plans for the 9/11 attacks.[102]
[edit]2001: Overthrow of the Taliban
Further information: 2001 in Afghanistan
On 7 October 2001, the U.S. government launched military operations in Afghanistan. On 7 October 2001, airstrikes were reported in Kabul (where electricity supplies were severed), at the airport, at Kandahar (home of the Taliban's Supreme Leader Mullah Omar), and in the city of Jalalabad. CNN released exclusive footage of Kabul being bombed to American broadcasters at approximately 5:08 pm 7 October 2001.[103]
On the ground, teams from the CIA's Special Activities Division (SAD) were the first U.S. forces to enter Afghanistan and begin combat operations. They were soon joined by U.S. Army Special Forces from the 5th Special Forces Group and other units fromUSSOCOM.[104][105][106][pages needed]
At 17:00 UTC, President Bush confirmed the strikes on national television and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair also addressed the UK. Bush stated that Taliban military sites and terrorist training grounds would be targeted. In addition, food, medicine, and supplies would be dropped to "the starving and suffering men, women and children of Afghanistan".[107]
Bin Laden released a prerecorded videotape before the attacks in which he condemned any attacks against Afghanistan. Al Jazeera,the Arabic satellite news channel, reported that the tapes were received shortly before the attack.
British and American special forces worked jointly to take Herat in November 2001. These forces worked with Afghan opposition groups on the ground, in particular the Northern Alliance. The United Kingdom, Canada and Australia also deployed forces, and several other countries provided basing, access and overflight permission.
The U.S. was able to track Mohammed Atef, al-Qaeda's number three at the time, who was one of the most wanted. He was killed by bombing at his Kabul home between 14–16 November 2001, along with his guard Abu Ali al-Yafi'i and six others.[108][109] This was one of America's first and largest victories during the early stages of the war.
[edit]Air campaigns
| “ | Having begun the war with the greatest imaginable reservoir of moral authority, the U.S. was on the verge of letting it slip away through high-level attacks using the most ghastly inventions its scientists could come up with. | ” |
—Stephen Tanner, Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the War against the Taliban[110]
| ||
Bombers operating at high altitudes well out of range of antiaircraft guns bombed at Afghan training camps and Taliban air defenses. U.S. aircraft, including Apache helicopter gunships from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, operated throughout the campaign with no losses due to Taliban air defenses. U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers launched several Tomahawk Cruise Missiles.
The strikes initially focused on the area in and around the cities of Kabul, Jalalabad, and Kandahar. Within a few days, most Taliban training sites were severely damaged, and the Taliban's air defenses were destroyed. The campaign focused on command, control, and communication targets, which weakened the ability of the Taliban forces to communicate. But, the line facing the Afghan Northern Alliance held, and no battlefield successes were achieved. Two weeks into the campaign, the Northern Alliance demanded the air campaign focus more on the front lines.
The next stage of the campaign began with carrier based F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bombers hitting Taliban vehicles in pinpoint strikes, while other U.S. planes began cluster bombing Taliban defenses. For the first time in years, Northern Alliance commanders began to see the substantive results that they had long hoped for on the front lines.
At the beginning of November, the allied forces attacked front lines with daisy cutter bombs, and by AC-130 gunships. The Taliban fighters had no previous experience with American firepower, and often stood on top of bare ridgelines where U.S. Army Special Forcescould easily spot them and call in close air support. By 2 November, Taliban frontal positions were devastated, and a Northern Alliance march on Kabul seemed possible. According to author Stephen Tanner,
"After a month of the U.S. bombing campaign rumblings began to reach Washington from Europe, the Mideast, and Pakistan where Musharraf had requested the bombing to cease. Having begun the war with the greatest imaginable reservoir of moral authority, the U.S. was on the verge of letting it slip away through high-level attacks using the most ghastly inventions its scientists could come up with."[110]
President George W. Bush went to New York City on 10 November 2001, "where the wreckage of the World Trade Center still smoldered with underground fires",[110] to address the United Nations. He said that not only the U.S. was in danger of further attacks by the 9/11 terrorists, but so was every other countries in the world. Tanner writes: "His words had impact. Most of the world renewed its support for the American effort, including commitments of material help from Germany, France, Italy, Japan and other countries."[110]
Fighters from al-Qaeda took over security in the Afghan cities, demonstrating the instability of the Taliban regime. The Northern Alliance and their Central Intelligence Agency/Special Forces advisers planned the next stage of their offensive. Northern Alliance troops would seize Mazari Sharif, thereby cutting off Taliban supply lines and enabling the flow of equipment from the countries to the north, followed by an attack on Kabul itself.
Areas most targeted
During the early months of the war, the U.S. military had a limited presence on the ground. The plan was that Special Forces, and intelligence officers with a military background, would serve as liaisons with Afghan militias opposed to the Taliban, would advance after the cohesiveness of the Taliban forces was disrupted by American air power.[111][112][113]
The Tora Bora Mountains lie roughly east of Afghanistan's capital Kabul, which is close to the border with Pakistan. American intelligence analysts believed that the Taliban and al-Qaeda had dug in behind fortified networks of well-supplied caves and underground bunkers. The area was subjected to a heavy continuous bombardment by B-52bombers.[111][112][113][114]
The U.S. forces and the Northern Alliance also began to diverge in their objectives. While the U.S. was continuing the search for Osama bin Laden, the Northern Alliance was pressuring for more support in their efforts to finish off the Taliban and control the country.
[edit]Battle of Mazar-i Sharif
Further information: Fall of Mazar-i-Sharif
The battle for Mazari Sharif was considered important, not only because it is the home of the Shrine of Hazrat Ali or "Blue Mosque", a sacred Muslim site, but also because it is the location of a significant transportation hub with two main airports and a major supply route leading into Uzbekistan.[115] It would also enable humanitarian aid to alleviate Afghanistan's looming food crisis, which had threatened more than six million people with starvation. Many of those in most urgent need lived in rural areas to the south and west of Mazar-i-Sharif.[115][116] On 9 November 2001, Northern Alliance forces, under the command of generals Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ustad Atta Mohammed Noor, swept across the Pul-i-Imam Bukhri bridge, meeting some resistance,[117][118] and seized the city's main military base and airport.
U.S. Special Operations Forces (namely Special Forces Operational Detachment A-595, CIA paramilitary officers and United States Air Force Combat Control Team[119][120][121] on horseback and using Close Air Support platforms, took part in the push into the city of Mazari Sharif inBalkh Province by the Northern Alliance. After a bloody 90-minute battle, Taliban forces, who had held the city since 1998, withdrew from the city, triggering jubilant celebrations among the townspeople whose ethnic and political affinities are with the Northern Alliance.[116][122]
The Taliban had spent three years fighting the Northern Alliance for Mazar-i-Sharif, precisely because its capture would confirm them as masters of all Afghanistan.[122] The fall of the city was a "body blow"[122] to the Taliban and ultimately proved to be a "major shock",[120] since the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) had originally believed that the city would remain in Taliban hands well into the following year,[123] and any potential battle would be "a very slow advance".[124]
Following rumors that Mullah Dadullah was headed to recapture the city with as many as 8,000 Taliban fighters, a thousand American 10th Mountain Division personnel were airlifted into the city, which provided the first solid foothold from which Kabul and Kandahar could be reached.[125][126] While prior military flights had to be launched fromUzbekistan or Aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea, now the Americans held their own airport in the country which allowed them to fly more frequent sorties for resupply missions and humanitarian aid. These missions allowed massive shipments of humanitarian aid to be immediately shipped to hundreds of thousands of Afghans facing starvation on the northern plain.[122][127]
The American-backed forces now controlling the city began immediately broadcasting from Radio Mazar-i-Sharif, the former Taliban Voice of Sharia channel on 1584 kHz,[128]including an address from former President Burhanuddin Rabbani.[129]
[edit]Fall of Kabul
Main article: Fall of Kabul
On the night of 12 November, Taliban forces fled from the city of Kabul, leaving under the cover of darkness. By the time Northern Alliance forces arrived in the afternoon of 13 November, only bomb craters, burned foliage, and the burnt-out shells of Taliban gun emplacements and positions were there to greet them. A group of about twenty hardline fighters hiding in the city's park were the only remaining defenders. This Taliban group was killed in a 15-minute gun battle, being heavily outnumbered and having had little more than a telescope to shield them. After these forces were neutralized Kabul was in the hands of the U.S./NATO forces and the Northern Alliance.[130]
The fall of Kabul marked the beginning of a collapse of Taliban positions across the map. Within 24 hours, all the Afghan provinces along the Iranian border, including the key city of Herat, had fallen. Local Pashtun commanders and warlords had taken over throughout northeastern Afghanistan, including the key city of Jalalabad. Taliban holdouts in the north, mainly Pakistani volunteers, fell back to the northern city of Kunduz to make a stand. By 16 November, the Taliban's last stronghold in northern Afghanistan was besieged by the Northern Alliance. Nearly 10,000 Taliban fighters, led by foreign fighters, refused to surrender and continued to put up resistance. By then, the Taliban had been forced back to their heartland in southeastern Afghanistan around Kandahar.[131]
By 13 November, al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, with the possible inclusion of Osama bin Laden, had regrouped and were concentrating their forces in the Tora Bora cave complex, on the Pakistan border 50 kilometers (30 mi) southwest of Jalalabad, to prepare for a stand against the Northern Alliance and U.S./NATO forces. Nearly 2,000 al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters fortified themselves in positions within bunkers and caves, and by 16 November, U.S. bombers began bombing the mountain fortress. Around the same time, CIA and Special Forces operatives were already at work in the area, enlisting and paying local warlords to join the fight and planning an attack on the Tora Bora complex.[132]
[edit]Fall of Kunduz
Main article: Airlift of Evil
Just as the bombardment at Tora Bora was stepped up, the siege of Kunduz that began on 16 November was continuing. Finally, after nine days of heavy fighting and American aerial bombardment, Taliban fighters surrendered to Northern Alliance forces on 25 November – 26 November. Shortly before the surrender, Pakistani aircraft arrived to evacuate intelligence and military personnel who had been in Afghanistan to aid the Taliban's ongoing fight against the Northern Alliance. However, during this airlift, it is alleged that up to five thousand people were evacuated from the region, including Taliban and al-Qaeda troops.[133][134][135]
[edit]Battle of Qala-i-Jangi
On 25 November, the day that Taliban fighters holding out in Kunduz surrendered and were being herded into the Qala-I-Janghi fortress near Mazar-I-Sharif, a few Taliban attacked some Northern Alliance guards, taking their weapons and opening fire. This incident soon triggered a widespread revolt by 300 prisoners, who soon seized the southern half of the complex, once a medieval fortress, including an armory stocked with small arms and crew-served weapons. One American CIA paramilitary operative who had been interrogating prisoners, Johnny Micheal Spann, was killed, marking the first American combat death in the war.
The revolt was finally put down after seven days of heavy fighting between a Special Boat Service unit along with some U.S. Army Special Forces and Northern Alliance, AC-130 gunships and other aircraft took part providing strafing fire on several occasions, as well as a bombing airstrikes.[136] A total of 86 of the Taliban prisoners survived, and around 50 Northern Alliance soldiers were killed. The squashing of the revolt marked the end of the combat in northern Afghanistan, where local Northern Alliance warlords were now firmly in control.
[edit]Consolidation: the taking of Kandahar
By the end of November, Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace, was its last remaining stronghold, and was coming under increasing pressure. Nearly 3,000 tribal fighters, led by Hamid Karzai, a loyalist of the former Afghan king, and Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of Kandahar before the Taliban seized power, pressured Taliban forces from the east and cut off the northern Taliban supply lines to Kandahar. The threat of the Northern Alliance loomed in the north and northeast.
Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 U.S. Marines, ferried in by CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters and C-130s, set up a Forward Operating Base known asCamp Rhino in the desert south of Kandahar on 25 November. This was the coalition's first strategic foothold in Afghanistan, and was the stepping stone to establishing other operating bases. The first significant combat involving U.S. ground forces occurred a day after Rhino was captured when 15 armored vehicles approached the base and were attacked by helicopter gunships, destroying many of them. Meanwhile, the airstrikes continued to pound Taliban positions inside the city, where Mullah Omar was holed up. Omar, the Taliban leader, remained defiant although his movement only controlled 4 out of the 30 Afghan provinces by the end of November and called on his forces to fight to the death.
On 6 December, the U.S. government rejected any amnesty for Omar or any Taliban leaders. Shortly thereafter on 7 December, Omar slipped out of the city of Kandahar with a group of his hardcore loyalists and moved northwest into the mountains of Uruzgan Province, reneging on the Taliban's promise to surrender their fighters and their weapons. He was last reported seen driving off with a group of his fighters on a convoy of motorcycles.
Other members of the Taliban leadership fled into Pakistan through the remote passes of Paktia and Paktika Provinces. Nevertheless, Kandahar, the last Taliban-controlled city, had fallen, and the majority of the Taliban fighters had disbanded. The border town of Spin Boldak was surrendered on the same day, marking the end of Taliban control in Afghanistan. The Afghan tribal forces under Gul Agha seized the city of Kandahar while the U.S. Marines took control of the airport outside and established a U.S. base.
[edit]Battle of Tora Bora
Main article: Battle of Tora Bora
Al-Qaeda fighters were still holding out in the mountains of Tora Bora, however, while an anti-Taliban tribal militia steadily pushed bin Laden back across the difficult terrain, backed by Delta Force, UK Special Forces and withering air strikes by the U.S. Facing defeat, the al-Qaeda forces agreed to a truce to give them time to surrender their weapons. In retrospect, however, many believe that the truce was a ruse to allow important al-Qaeda figures, including Osama bin Laden, to escape. On 12 December, the fighting flared again, probably initiated by a rear guard buying time for the main force's escape through the White Mountains into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Again, tribal forces backed by British and U.S. special operations troops and air support pressed ahead against fortified al-Qaeda positions in caves and bunkers scattered throughout the mountainous region.
By 17 December, the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun. A search of the area by U.S. and U.K. forces continued into January, but no sign of bin Laden or the al-Qaeda leadership emerged. It is almost unanimously believed that they had already slipped away into the tribal areas of Pakistan to the south and east. It is estimated that around 200 of the al-Qaeda fighters were killed during the battle, along with an unknown number of anti-Taliban tribal fighters. No American or British deaths were reported.
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