By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism
2005


In the aftermath of 9/11, the US government employed a global military strategy with both overt and covert dimensions. The most immediately obvious overt military overtures consisted of the 2001 war on Afghanistan as a means to establish an unprecedented US military presence in Central Asia. As for the covert aspect of US military operations, some indications of what was in store for the world came about from a classified report for the Pentagon.

The Takeover of Central Asia

In October 2001, as soon as the bombing campaign in Afghanistan commenced, the Bush administration began pursuing the principal interests that had motivated its pre-9/11 regional war plans. Pakistan's Frontier Post reported that:

The US ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain paid a courtesy call on the Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, Usman Aminuddin, here Tuesday and discussed with him matters pertaining to Pak-US cooperation in the oil and gas sector.... Usman Aminuddin also briefed the Ambassador on the proposed Turkmenistan-AfghanistanPakistan gas pipeline project and said that this project opens up new - avenues of multi-dimensional regional cooperation particularly in view of the recent geo-political developments in the region.'

With the removal of the Taliban from power, the US was ready to establish a regime friendlier to regional US requirements. The new federal administration of Northern Alliance warlords signaled a return to the pre-Taliban era of barbarism and brutality-although this time with factional war and rivalry limited under the terms of the US-UN-brokered agreements. Former Canadian diplomat Professor Peter Dale Scott, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, noted in January 2002 that:

[O]ne has a clear sense that warlordism is returning to Afghanistan. We are seeing a return of the worst features of the pre-Taliban 1990s: unrestricted banditry, looting of food supplies meant for civilians, widespread smuggling of all forms and above all extensive production of opium and heroin.'

But the problems of the Afghan people were irrelevant. What was relevant was obtaining security for regional US interests. Commenting on the disconcerting prominence of the oil and gas issue, the San Francisco Chronicle observed a few weeks after 9/11 that:

The hidden stakes in the war against terrorism can be summed up in a single word: oil. The map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in the Middle East and Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary degree, a map of the world's principal energy sources in the 21st century.... It is inevitable that the war against terrorism will be seen by many as a war on behalf of America's Chevron, Exxon, and Arco; France's TotalFinaElf; British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational giants, which have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the region.'

The Chronicle's concerns were confirmed by the end of November when the White House released a statement from Bush on the opening of the first new pipeline by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium: 'The CPC project also advances my Administration's National Energy Policy by developing a network of multiple Caspian pipelines that also includes the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Supsa, and Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipelines and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline."4

The pipeline is a joint venture of Russia, Kazakhstan, Oman, ChevronTexaco, ExxoriMobil and several other oil companies, connecting the Tengiz oilfield in northwestern Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. American companies had put up $1 billion of the $2.65 billion construction cost The pipeline consortium involved in the Baku-Ceyhan plan, led by British oil company BP, is represented by the law firm of Baker & Botts, whose principal attorney is James Baker III. Baker III was secretary of state under the first Bush administration. He was also the chief spokesman for the second Bush's 2000 campaign, during its successful attempt to block the vote recount in Florida.

The New York Times reported further developments in December 2001:

There is no oil in Afghanistan, but there are oil politics, and Washington is subtly tending to them, using the promise of energy investments in Central Asia to nurture a budding set of political alliances in the region with Russia, Kazakhstan and, to some extent, Uzbekistan...

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has lauded the region as a stable oil supplier, in a tacit comparison with the Persian Gulf states that have been viewed lately as less cooperative. The State Department is exploring the potential for post-Taliban energy projects in the region, which has more than 6 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and almost 40 percent of its gas reserves.... Better ties between Russia and the United States, for example, have accelerated a thaw that began more than a year ago over pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea to the West.'

By New Year's Eve, nine days after the US-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai took office in Kabul, President Bush appointed a former aide to the American oil company UNOCAL, Zalmay Khalilzad, as special envoy to Afghanistan. Khalilzad drew up a risk analysis of a proposed gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean and also participated in talks between UNOCAL and Taliban officials in 1997, aimed at implementing a 1995 agreement to build the pipeline across western Afghanistan. It turns out that the newly appointed Afghani Prime Minister Hamid Karzai is also a former paid consultant for UNOCAL, according to reports in the French Le Monde and the Saudi Al-Watan.b These nominations illustrate the fundamental interests behind US military intervention in Afghanistan,' which have been articulated aptly by S. Rob Sobhani, professor of foreign relations at Georgetown University and director of Caspian Energy Consulting: "It is absolutely essential that the US make the pipeline the centerpiece of rebuilding Afghanistan."'


UNOCAL has publicly denied its Karzai connection, but as investigative journalist and former National Security Agency official Wayne Madsen observes: "According to Afghan, Iranian, and Turkish government sources, Hamid Karzai, the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, was a top adviser to the... UNOCAL Corporation which was negotiating with the Taliban to construct a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan." Madsen's sources indicate that Karzai "maintained close relations with CIA Director William Casey, Vice President George Bush, and their Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) interlocutors" during the Afghan war with the Soviets...

Later, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA. Karzai continued to serve the agency's interests, as well as those of the Bush family and their oil friends in negotiating the CentGas deal, according to Middle East and South Asian sources.... Karzai's ties with UNOCAL and the Bush administration are the main reason why the CIA pushed him for Afghan leader over rival Abdul Haq, the assassinated former mujaheddin leader from Jalalabad, and the leadership of the Northern Alliance, seen by Langley as being too close to the Russians and Iranians.'

Thus, by mid-February, the Irish Times reported that:

Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf, and the Afghan interim leader Mr. Hamid Karzai, agreed yesterday that their two countries should develop "mutual brotherly relations" and co-operate "in all spheres of activity"-including a proposed gas pipeline from Central Asia to Pakistan via Afghanistan... Mr. Karzai, who arrived in Islamabad earlier yesterday for a one-day visit, said he and Gen Musharraf discussed the proposed Central Asian gas pipeline project "and agreed that it was in the interest of both countries.""

By mid-April 2002, the head of the World Bank James Wolfensohn gave an address at the opening of the World Bank's offices in Kabul. He stated that he had held high-level discussions about financing the trans-Afghan gas pipeline. While confirming $100 million in new grants for the interim Afghan government, Wolfensohn also confirmed that several companies had already privately expressed their interest in the project." Although UNOCAL' continues to publicly deny involvement-and no corporations are yet firmly committed-credible Pakistani sources reported significant progress on both oil and gas pipelines through Afghanistan, suggesting specifically that UNOCAL is likely to re-emerge as a pipeline contender."

Alim Razi, the Afghan minister for mines and industries, also stated that UNOCAL is likely to play a lead role in the pipeline project once conditions in the country make it viable. According to BBC News: "Mr. Razim said US energy company Unocal was the `lead company' among those that would build the pipeline, which would bring 30 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas to market annually."" The Asia Times further reported that Unocal also has a project to build the so-called Central Asian Oil Pipeline, almost 1,700 km long, linking Chardzhou in Turkmenistan to Russian's existing Siberian oil pipelines and also to the Pakistani Arabian Sea coast. This pipeline will carry 1 mm bpd of oil from different areas of former Soviet republics, and it will run parallel to the gas pipeline route through Afghanistan.


Regional sources indicate that the trans-Afghan pipeline has full backing of the Bush administration and some more US companies were expected to join the consortium in a bid to block entry of Argentinean Bridas or Russian Gazprom in the mega oil and gas pipeline projects...

Energy experts have been indicating US eyes on Caspian Sea reserves of $5 t with companies owned by Bush senior and Vice President Dick Cheny showing keen interest. The United States is also expecting investment from US-based energy firms through Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) to reactivate over $2 billion Turkmenistan to Pakistan gas pipeline."

The US military intervention in Afghanistan also allowed the US to counter its Russian rival and establish dominance over the Central Asian republics on thecountry's border. Reuters reported near the end of September that:

The ex-Soviet republics used the crisis to assert their independence from Moscow, quickly agreeing to open air corridors and possibly airports to the United States, something that was unthinkable only two weeks ago. Once the region's unquestioned master, Moscow found it had little choice but to agree with the Central Asian states and let US forces into the region for the first time."

Thus, new economic programs have been accompanied by the establishment of a permanent military presence in the region, even while the war on Afghanistan was drawing to a close. The Los Angeles Times reported that: "Behind a veil of secret agreements, the United States is creating a ring of new and expanded military bases that encircle Afghanistan and enhance the armed forces' ability to strike targets throughout much of the Muslim world...

Since Sept. 11, according to Pentagon sources, military tent cities have sprung up at 13 locations in nine countries neighboring Afghanistan, substantially extending the network of bases in the region. All together, from Bulgaria and Uzbekistan to Turkey, Kuwait and beyond, more than 60,000 US military personnel now live and work at these forward bases. Hundreds of aircraft fly in and out of so-called "expeditionary airfields.""

There can be no doubt that this presence is intended to be permanent. Radio Free Europe/Liberty further reported developments in the region indicating that the US military has been making itself at home in Central Asia:

Even though the US-led campaign in Afghanistan appears to be drawing to a close, Washington is building up its military presence in Central Asia to protect what it describes as its long-term interests, in an area Russia and China consider part of their sphere of influence.... The United States, which has gained a foothold in Central Asia over the course of its antiterrorism campaign in Afghanistan, is now considering ways to consolidate its military buildup there in a bid to raise its political profile in the region.

"[T]he Pentagon and its allies" have already established a foothold in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan as a "rear base for military operations and as a corridor for humanitarian aid." Kazakhstan and Tajikistan "have offered their respective airspaces and airfields to US planes for operations in Afghanistan." Meanwhile, "some 2,000 US soldiers are already deployed in former Soviet Central Asia, mainly on Uzbekistan's southern Khanabad airfield, near the Afghan border," and according to the Uzbek President speaking on December 28, 2001, there is"no deadline for US troops to pull out of the base." Despite the cessation of the "US-led anti-Taliban operation... the Pentagon is building military facilities at Manas international airport-some 30 kilometers outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek-which could house up to 3,000 troops." The Kyrgyz parliament had also agreed to allow the US military to install a base at Manas. The New York Times further reported on January 10, 2002 that "US military planners are also considering rotating troops in the region every six months, increasing technical support for and conducting training exercises with Central Asian countries." US officials have generally confirmed the permanent nature of the expanding US military occupation of the region.

In comments last month to the US Congress's Foreign Affairs Committee, Elizabeth Jones-the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs-notably said President George W Bush's administration hopes a permanent US presence in Central Asia will boost regional economic development.... US Deputy Defense Secretary James Wolfowitz said that, by upgrading its military presence in Central Asia, the US wishes to send a clear message to regional countries-especially to Uzbekistan-that it will not forget about them and that it "has a capacity to come back and will come back in" whenever needed.... A report published on 6 January in the Washington Post said that, in addition, the Bush administration is planning to abrogate a Cold War-era bill that places conditions on a number of former Soviet republics' trade relations with the US based on their human rights records.... The planned move has already stirred controversy among regional analysts, who believe it could send the message that the US is ready to condone human rights abuses in some of these countries in return for their loyalty."

The expansion of US hegemony is thus to be accompanied by the legitimization of regional human rights abuses. The instrumental role played by 9/11 in providing a justification for the anti-humanitarian expansion and consolidation of US hegemony in Central Asia was specifically indicated by US Senator Joseph Lieberman. Speaking on January 7, 2002, at Bagram air base near Kabul, he observed: "We learned at a very high and painful price the cost of a lack of involvement in Central Asia on 11 September, and we're not going to let it happen again.""

The Post-9/11 Terror-Security Apparatus

In a little noted but important article for the Los Angeles Times, US defense analyst William Arkin referred to a classified "outbrief" compiled by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Science Board 2002 Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism. The secret study-drafted to guide other Pentagon agencies-recommended the
implementation of "new strategies, postures and organization" in fighting the "War on Terror." The principal vehicle of these new methods is:

... a super-Intelligence Support Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group, (P20G), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception.

Among other things, this body would launch secret operations aimed at "stimulating reactions" among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction-that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into action and exposing themselves to "quick-response" attacks by US forces.

Military intervention would be justified because such actions "would hold 'states/sub-state actors accountable' and `signal to harboring states that their sovereignty will be at risk."' The Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P20G) is not an entirely unprecedented structure. Rather, its roots go back to the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) established in 1981, which "fought in drug wars and counter-terror operations from the Middle East to South America," building a reputation for lawlessness. Throughout the 1990s, the ISA operated under different guises, and today is active under the code name Gray Fox:

Gray Fox's low-profile eavesdropping planes also fly without military markings. Working closely with Special Forces and the CIA, Gray Fox also places operatives inside hostile territory. In and around Afghanistan, Gray Fox was part of a secret sphere that included the CIA's paramilitary Special Activities Division and the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command. These commands and "white" Special Forces like the Green Berets, as well as Air Force combat controllers and commandos of eight different nations report to a mind-boggling array of new command cells and coordination units set up after Sept. 11.

In other words, the P20G merely expands an already existing apparatus for covert operations connected to terrorism. However, the language of the Defense Science Board clarifies that P20G's primary purpose is to provoke terrorist groups into actually conducting anti-US operations in order permit a US military response. The Board additionally proposes "tagging key terrorist figures with special chemicals so they can be tracked by laser anywhere on Earth" and "creating a `red team' of particularly diabolical thinkers to plot imaginary terror attacks on the United States so the government can plan to thwart them." A key role for "an elite group of counter-terror operatives" would be "duping al Qaeda into undertaking operations" and attempting to "stimulate terrorists into responding or moving operations." This will be facilitated by dramatic increases in urban warfare capabilities through "the development of a detailed database of most of the cities in the world... with GPS coordinates marking key structures and roads." This constantly updated database would "come together in a threedimensional display showing buildings, including windows and doors, streets and alleys and underground passages, obstacles like power lines and key infrastructure like water and communications lines."

The new Pentagon strategy then is ultimately "aimed at luring terrorists into committing acts of terrorism" as an integral part of fighting terrorism." As journalist Chris Floyd wryly observes:

Once they have sparked terrorists into action-by killing their family members? luring them with loot? fueling them with drugs? plying them with jihad propaganda? messing with their mamas? or with agents provocateurs, perhaps, who infiltrate groups then plan and direct the attacks themselves?-they can then take measures against the "states/sub-state actors accountable" for "harboring" the Rumsfeld-roused gangs.z'

P20G raises a number of critical issues. Most pertinently, P20G undoubtedly demonstrates the overarching trends that characterize the fundamental framework of thinking behind some of the most influential US policymakers involved in planning for the "War on Terror." This in turn raises the issue of whether P20G is really an entirely novel and unprecedented proposal, or in fact a one-off public revelation of a particular program of policies that has a much deeper ancestry in the US policymaking establishment. In light of the previous documentation concerning the interlocking web of US--al-Qaeda connections across the globe, one may reasonably conclude that this notion provides the most plausible explanation of the facilitation of international terrorism systematically generated by the US national security apparatus over the last decade or so. Unfortunately, further information on P20G has not been forthcoming. Nevertheless, credible circumstantial evidence exists confirming that in the post-9/11 era, the same pattern of Western-al-Qaeda connections discerned in the pre-9/11 era continues to prevail. A prime example of this is alQaeda's Moroccan network.
The Terror-Security Apparatus in Action: Moroccan Terrorists, Spanish Security Services, and the Madrid Bombings

On the morning of March 11, 2004, a series of ten coordinated terrorist bombings against the commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, occurred, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,800. These were the worst terrorist attacks in Europe since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. It was not long before, after having jumped to blame the bombings on ETA, the Spanish Interior Minister disclosed that a video had been obtained on which a man identifying himself as an al-Qaeda military spokesman claimed responsibility for the attacks." Soon Spanish police identified twenty Moroccans who they believed to have "planned and carried out" the bombings, based on "a trail of evidence that began with a pre-paid cell phone card, found inside a backpack along with an unexploded bomb and a cell phone wired as a detonator." Three Moroccans were arrested, including "Jamal Zougam... a key suspect in their investigation." Zougam is apparently among a list of figures in a Spanish indictment of "alleged Al Qaeda members accused of helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks." He is also tied to the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombing that killed 40 people and was conducted by a "Moroccan al Qaeda faction. Many of the group's radical Islamist followers studied in Saudi-financed schools that sprang up in Casablanca's poor neighborhoods in the 1970s."

Indeed, citing counterterrorism sources, the Jerusalem-based intelligence news service DEBKAFile, reported that: "Like the attacks in the United States, they were conceived, planned, orchestrated and directed by Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman Zuwahiri, in person." 26 Several intelligence sources report that the Moroccan group is known as Salafia Jihad-the same at, Qaeda affiliate that bombed Casablanca in 2003.2'

Apart from the alarming implications of the Zawahiri connection, DEBKAFile raises some other pertinent facts concerning the extent of advanced warning available to both US and European intelligence agencies about the impending Madrid attacks:

Bin Laden's "success" owes less to his superior craft than to the laxness of US and European counter-terror authorities. The names and descriptions of all the members of the Moroccan network which perpetrated the worst terrorist outrage since 9/11 were in their possession, handed over by Ramzi bin al Shaiba after he reached US custody in September 2002. All that time, none of the Moroccan terrorists named were detained, although their network is directly controlled by bin Laden himself and despite the fact that they lived mostly in Madrid or Tangiers."


The barely reported revelation that US and European intelligence services had in their possession a detailed list of the entire structure and membership of a1Qaeda Moroccan network is startling-why was it not acted upon? In another report, DEBKAFile stated citing counterterrorism sources that US and European intelligence services had also received detailed, repeated, and explicit warnings of an impending attack on Europe in general and particularly in Spain:

According to data gathered by our experts, from December 2002, three months before the US invasion of Iraq, al Qaeda began issuing a stream of fatwas designating its main operating theatres in Europe. Spain was on the list, but not the first.

1. Turkey was first. Islamic fundamentalists were constrained to recover the honor and glory of the Ottoman caliphates which were trampled by Christian forces in 1917 in the last days of World War I.

2. Spain followed. There, al Qaeda set Muslims the goal of recovering their lost kingdom in Andalusia.

3. Italy and its capital were third. Muslim fundamentalists view Rome as a world center of heresy because of the Vatican and the Pope. 4. Vienna came next because the advancing Muslim armies were defeated there in 1683 before they could engulf the heart of Europe.'

These warnings were born out in the first wave of attacks that occurred in late 2003 in the suicide bombing of two synagogues, the British consulate, and a London-based bank in Istanbul, attributed to al-Qaeda operatives.'° Spain was clearly next on the list. Yet astonishingly, despite having anticipated an al-Qaeda terrorist operation in Spain and despite having detailed intelligence on the operatives planning the attack, neither US nor European intelligence agencies lifted a finger to shut down al-Qaeda's Moroccan terrorist network in Spain.

Even more remarkably, further official investigations confirmed ties between key al-Qaeda Moroccan operatives involved in the Madrid attack and Spanish security services. The London Times reported that:

The man accused of supplying the dynamite used in the al-Qaeda train bombings in Madrid was in possession of the private telephone number of the head of Spain's Civil Guard bomb squad... Emilio Suarez Trashorras, who is alleged to have supplied 200kg of dynamite used in the bombs, had obtained the number of Juan Jesus Sanchez Manzano, the head of Tedax.

The revelation has raised fresh concerns in Madrid about links between those held responsible for the March bombings, which killed 190 people, and Spain's security services, and shortcomings in the police investigation. Senor Sudrez Trashorras and two other men implicated in the bombings have already been identified as police informers. Other members of the group had evaded police surveillance, despite concerns within the security services about their activities and evidence of their association with al-Qaeda."

BBC News provides some further crucial context to these disclosures, noting that the Spanish Interior Ministry was investigating evidence that two of the suspects "were police informants." The Spanish daily El Mundo reported that "Moroccan Rafa Zuher and Spaniard Jose Emilio Suarez had been in contact with police before the attacks." Both men are believed to have provided dynamite for the attacks. Zuher was "an informant for the National Police, providing information about trafficking in weapons, drugs and explosives." Citing security sources, El Mundo noted that Zuher "was believed to be the link between Mr. Suarez, who allegedly supplied the explosives, and the cell that carried out the attacks.""

There are also reported French connections to this Moroccan network. In Casablanca, five simultaneous bombings on May 16, 2003, killed 45 people. The al-Qaeda affiliated Salafia Jihad was found to have organized the attacks. One of the defendants in the trial, however, was Frenchman Robert Richard AntoinePierre, otherwise known as Pierre Robert. Robert, who also used the names Lhaj and Abou Abderrahmane, was detained in Tangiers where he had lived for several years as a convert to Islam." In controversial court testimony, Robertwho was charged with "criminal conspiracy, conspiracy to undermine state security, premeditated murder and possession of arms and explosives in connection with the attacks in Casablanca""--claimed that he has "worked for French intelligence" and "had been paid to infiltrate Muslim groups...

Mr. Robert, 31, said a French secret service agent known as "Mr. Luc" first approached him to recruit him five years ago, and paid him for his services. "I was contacted at the time of the [soccer] World Cup in 1998 by the DST to conduct inquiries into Algerian Islamist networks in France, and I did that," Mr. Robert told the court in Rabat. After successfully completing the mission, Mr. Robert was asked by Mr. Luc to investigate "Islamist activities in Belgium"-which he also carried out, he said.

The French government has apparently denied the allegations-albeit in a rather peculiar way, with one French Interior Ministry official insisting "that the department had `never had contact with this person."" This bizarre statement, in fact, only denies that Robert ever had direct contact with the French Interior Ministry, not that he had contact with a French intelligence agency. In any case, what is certain is that the covert pattern of Westem-alQaeda connections is evident again: Spanish and European security services interpenetrate with a Moroccan terrorist network, which in turn is interpenetrated with al-Qaeda. Against this background, studious Western inaction, despite urgent advanced warnings of the attacks and detailed intelligence on their planners, facilitated terrorism.
Next in Line: Bin Laden in China?

According to the Israeli intelligence news service DEBKAFile, a large number of Western intelligence services as of October 2004 believe that Osama bin Laden was headed toward China. American, Indian, Pakistani, and Russian intelligence agencies are reportedly "convinced that... he headed out to his winter hideout in the Himalayas or Little Pamir and will stay there until the spring thaw" However, between October 17 and 19, an Indian Air Force reconnaissance plane spotted bin Laden "in the Tibet-Laddakh region close to the northeastern corner of Pakistan bordering India and China...

(Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, The War on Truth: 9/11. Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism. Northampton, Massachusetts: Interlink Publishing, Inc., 2005, pp. 319-329.)