The Eleventh Day

Statement of Thomas Pickard, 4/13/04, CO;

3

political/?“Palestinian”/?“the right”:

The Times

(London), 10/18/97, Reeve, 125, 127, Bergen,

OBL I Know

, 145;

4

explosives/?“Chemist”:

Bergen,

OBL I Know

, Abuzza, “Belik Terrorism”;

5

phone call:

U.S. v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel Rahman et al

.

6

“Boom!”:

McDermott, 130. The friend, Abdul Murad, was later to become deeply involved in Yousef’s plotting and later—once captured—talked at length. The “chocolate” story is from the record of an FBI interview (FBI 302 of int. Abdul Hakim Ali Murad, 5/11/95, “Various Interrogation Reports,” B24, T1, CF).

7

“break”/“exploding”:

U.S. v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel Rahman et al.

, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd District, 189 F.3d 88, 8/16/99, “The Muslim Interfaith Charade,” 5/6/08,

www.militantislammonitor.org

, Daniel Benjamin & Steven Simon,

The Age of Sacred Terror

, NY: Random House, 2003, 6–. Heavy with implication as they are, one cannot read too much into the Blind Sheikh’s remarks. In captivity, Yousef would insist

that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was his idea and his alone. His contact Abdul Murad, for his part, would reportedly claim he proposed the bombing—after Yousef asked him to suggest a suitable “Jewish” target (McDermott, 130, Lance,

1000 Years

, 199, Peter Lance,

Triple Cross

, NY: Regan, 2006, 121);

8

“targeting”:

Village Voice

, 3/30/93.

9

flew NY/?passports/?suspicions/?asylum:

Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Travel, CO,

The Times

(London), 10/18/97, MFR 04020564, 3/22/04. The accomplice was Ahmad Ajaj. He would remain incarcerated until Yousef’s attempt to bring down the Twin Towers in February 1993, was later tried as an accomplice, and is serving a life sentence (Staff Report, “Monograph on Terrorist Travel,” CO).

10 Al Khifa contact: The contact at the Al Khifa center was Mahmoud Abouhalima, an Egyptian-born veteran Yousef had reportedly known in Afghanistan. Yousef’s principal accomplices in the weeks that followed were Mohammad Salameh, a Palestinian whose grandfather and uncle had served time in Israeli prisons, Nidal Ayyad, a chemical engineer—like Yousef born in Kuwait—and a Jordanian named Eyad Ismoil. There was no hard evidence to implicate Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, but he was charged in the summer of 1993 with conspiring with others to commit bombings of other New York landmarks (Reeve, 143, 114, 62, Village Voice, 3/30/93, U.S. v. Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel Rahman et al., S5 93 Cr. 181, 1/17/96).

11 Yousef acquired/?loaded/?rented/?escape: Reeve, 6–, 24–, 36–, Burke, 101;

12 “largest”: Reeve, 154;

13 earthquake/“like Christmas tree”/?devastation/?elevators/?dead: ibid., 10–, 13–, 15;

14 “Achilles’ heel”: New Yorker, 3/30/93;

15 bring down Tower: NYT, 6/9/02, Wright, 178;

16 “Liberation”/“The American”/“Our calculations”/phoned in: Lance, Triple Cross, 116, Burke, 111, WP, 9/13/01.

17 tracked down/identified: Reeve, 39–, 42–, 56, U.S. v. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef et al., U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, 8/01, CR, 72–.

18 plot new mayhem: In July 1993, five months after attacking the World Trade Center, Yousef tried to bomb the home of Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto, then a candidate for prime minister. He suffered a serious eye injury when the detonator exploded, and spent months recovering. By early 1994 he was in Thailand and again preparing a bomb attack—on the Israeli embassy. That attack also failed at the last moment, when an accomplice crashed the van carrying the bomb to the target. Yousef mulled attacking President Bill Clinton, either with explosives or a rocket, when he visited Manila in November 1994. The following month, with Pope John Paul due to arrive in the city, he prepared a number of pipe bombs. He and accomplice Abdul Murad had already purchased priest’s clothing, Bibles, and crucifixes—as cover for those carrying the bombs to the target—when police raided their bomb factory (see text) (Bhutto: Reeve, 50–, 69, Vitug & Gloria, 231; Thailand: Reeve, 63–; Clinton: Reeve, 76–, CNN, 8/25/98; John Paul: Ressa, 31–, Reeve, 78, 85–).

19 Pope/“Just some”/“Saeed” arrest: WP, 12/30/01.

20 tortured/“Agents hit”: Vitug & Gloria, 223, McDermott, 153. The reporters were Marites Danguilan Vitug, who has reported for Newsweek and The Christian Science Monitor, and Glenda Gloria, who holds a master’s degree in political sociology from the London School of Economics. The reporting cited here is from the award-winning book on the Muslim rebellion in Mindanao, in the eastern Philippines. (Vitug & Gloria, 222–).

21 transcript: Murad Interrogation, 1/7/95, posted at www.thesmokinggun.com, & see NY Daily News, 7/24/96, Ressa, 39–;

22 Murad/“to blow up”/?summoned/?disguises/?watches: FBI 302 of int. Abdul Hakim Ali Murad, 5/11/95, “Various Interrogation Reports,” B24, T1, CF, Lance, 1000 Years, 259;

23 device in theater: Reeve, 77, Benjamin & Simon, 493, Lance, 1000 Years, 236–;

24 Italian/bomb: Lance, 1000 Years, 237–, Reeve, 78–;

25 Murad bomb/Parker pen/“cause”: FBI 302 of int. Abdul Hakim Ali Murad; United Flight 2: Philippine National Police (PNP) “After Debriefing Report,” 1/17/95;

26 11 airliners/terrorists: Reeve, 90–, 94–;

27 “TIMER”: WP, 12/20/01;

28 airlines alerted/grounded: Richard Clarke, 93–, MFR 04017178, 11/21/03, Lance, Triple Cross, 441;

29 4,000 could have died: Reeve, 90.

30 “BOJINKA”: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly told CIA interrogators after 9/11 that