July 23, 2004
Billy House and Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden's top agent for procuring weapons of mass destruction was among several key al-Qaida figures who attended the University of Arizona or lived in Tucson during the 1980s and early 1990s, according to the Sept. 11 commission's final report, released Thursday.
The highly anticipated 567-page report also refers to more than a dozen other individuals who lived in Arizona from the 1990s through Sept. 11, 2001, and who were targeted in terrorism investigations after hijackers smashed jetliners into the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
A number of those subjects are now known al-Qaida associates, and some trained at terror camps in Afghanistan.
A report titled "Arizona: Long Term Nexus for Islamic Extremist," done jointly by the CIA and the FBI and dated May 15, 2002, is among the previously undisclosed documents the commission says it relied upon for observations about the al-Qaida activities in Arizona.
Congressional findings and public testimony previously have disclosed that Hani Hanjour, a Saudi who piloted a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, trained at Arizona flight schools starting as early as 1996. He lived mostly in the East Valley, including at one point in 2001 with fellow hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi.
But the commission report released Thursday goes beyond that, discussing the much longer history of an al-Qaida presence in Arizona, a connection The Arizona Republic previously had reported extends as far back as the 1980s.
Some of this activity predates the federal government's declaration of al-Qaida as an official "enemy of the state" in the mid-1990s.
What is new in the commission report are names of reported al-Qaida operatives who purportedly spent time in Arizona. Specific time frames are not always mentioned, however.
Among the operatives mentioned as having lived in Tucson during the 1980s or 1990s:
• Mubarak al-Duri, reportedly bin Laden's principal procurement agent for weapons of mass destruction.
• Mohammed Bayazid, an al-Qaida arms procurer and trainer who reportedly tried to obtain material for nuclear weapons 10 years ago in Sudan.
• Wadih el Hage, an operative convicted in the August 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Those figures were in Arizona at a time when bin Laden was considered a U.S. intelligence asset in Afghanistan, helping insurgents fight the Soviets. Most or all of them left the state before al-Qaida emerged as a terrorist threat to the United States, but they had established a foothold.
By the mid-1990s, the report notes, investigators believe Hanjour and others were being directed by al-Qaida leaders to Arizona to enroll in aviation training, some "without being told why."
When they got to Arizona, they were not alone.
"It is clear that when Hanjour lived in Arizona in the 1990s, he associated with several individuals holding extremist beliefs who have been the subject of counterterrorism investigations," the report states. "Some of them trained with Hanjour to be pilots."
"Others had apparent connections to al-Qaida, including training in Afghanistan," the report adds.
The commission report also addresses the so-called "Phoenix Memo," a July 10, 2001, e-mail warning FBI headquarters about numerous Middle Eastern men training at Arizona flight schools.
The detailed message from a Phoenix-based agent, Ken Williams, was ignored by higher-ups at the bureau.
Even if the FBI had acted on the recommendations, including a request for intelligence checks on all foreign students attending civil aviation schools around the country, the commission report concludes, "we do not believe it would have uncovered the (Sept. 11) plot."
However, the commission added, a better handling of the memo may have "sensitized" the FBI to clues during the next few months, including an investigation of a key lead, Minnesota flight-training student Zacarias Moussaoui.
Besides filling in more history of al-Qaida's early history in Arizona, the 9/11 report adds detail to Hanjour's activities and his web of Arizona associates.
Most of those figures have been a target of media research, and most have come up in FBI interrogations since the Sept. 11 investigation began.
Islamic leaders in the state said Thursday that the report is old news.
"These are the same names that we have been asked about since 9/11," said Mohammed As'ad, director of the Islamic Center of Tucson.
He said the bin Laden associates filtered in and out of the mosque because it was the only mosque in town.
"They kept to themselves in their own little group," As'ad said. "They were not involved in anything going on in the general (Muslim) community."
Tucson Citizen contributed to this article. Reach the reporter at dennis.wagner@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8874.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/07239-11report23.html