Private military connections to Al Qaeda revealed. - Wayne Madsen Report

August 7-9, 2009 -- Private military connections to "Al Qaeda" revealed.
publication date: Aug 7, 2009
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August 7-9, 2009 -- Private military connections to "Al Qaeda" revealed.

In the wake of revelations from two former Blackwater employees that the private military firm engaged in political assassinations in Iraq and a statement from former FBI foreign language translator Sibel Edmonds that Osama Bin Laden worked for the CIA up until the 9/11 attacks, WMR has received additional information pointing to the involvement of private military companies in providing logistical assistance to "Al Qaeda" functionaries throughout the Middle East.

The "Al Qaeda"-private military cooperation also entails narcotics smuggling, real estate investments, weapons smuggling, and high-volume money laundering, according to sources who worked for a number of private military companies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The support network for Osama Bin Laden and his top lieutenants prior to 9/11 also involved CIA stations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Doha, Qatar. Top members of the Qatari and UAE royal families were enlisted by American intelligence to provide logistics support, including financial assistance, to "Al Qaeda" operatives transiting between Afghanistan and the Gulf states, according to our sources. The information obtained by WMR corroborates that from former CIA agent Robert Baer who revealed that Al Qaeda's chief of terrorist operations, Khalid Shaikh Mohamed (KSM), received help from Qatari royals in escaping from Qatar in 1997. Baer later claimed he passed information on KSM's escape from Qatar to the CIA's Counterterrorism Center but the agency showed no interest.

Similarly, Qatari royal family members also provided assistance, including a safe house, passports, and financial support to an "Al Qaeda" terrorist cell operated by Jordanian national Abu Musaab Zarqawi, later killed by U.S. forces in Iraq. Qatar happens to host the largest U.S. airbase in the Middle East region.

WMR confirmed a 2001 French press report that the CIA station chief in Dubai, Larry Mitchell, working under official cover as a consular agent at the U.S. Consulate in the city, met with Bin Laden on July 12, 2001, while Bin Laden was undergoing kidney treatment at the American Hospital.

However, Bin Laden must not have appreciated the hospitality of the Dubai authorities during his kidney treatment. WMR learned that "Al Qaeda" cells were caught trying to plant explosives at the foundations of several skyscrapers along Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai. The work was being carried out by Pakistani engineers in 2007. It now appears that it was not "Al Qaeda" that was involved but a false flag operation designed to bolster support in the Gulf region for the U.S. war against the largely trumped up "global terrorist" entity. The neoconservatives in the U.S. and British governments would also gain an added bonus from a skyscraper attack oin Dubai -- Russian government-linked entities own as much as 80 percent interest in Dubai high-rise real estate.

WMR has also learned that some "Al Qaeda" functionaries regularly receive extortoion payments from Gulf states worried about terrorist attacks on their soil. These countries include the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain. The payments are allegedly coordinated through Paris.

There is also evidence that some of the CIA's detainees held at prisons like Guantanamo Bay were tortured by CIA officers to determine how much knowledge they had of CIA connections to their "Al Qaeda" superiors. WMR has learned of one case in which a Bahraini national was subject to such interrogation at Guantanamo.

Apparently, the UAE Intelligence services are wise to the involvement of western intelligence agencies with purported "Al Qaeda" functionaries because of its ability to conduct massive electronic eavesdropping on GSM wireless devices, including cell phones and palm-held digital devices. In addition, the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) has cooperated with Emirati intelligence to determine that Western intelligence has been working closely with "Jihadi" terrorist cells in the Gulf region.

Private military contractors have been linked to "Al Qaeda" and affiliate support networks from the Gulf region to as far away as the Philippines and Indonesia. The private military firms are primarily American and British.

WMR prevously reported on a highly-classified French DGSE intelligence report that stated "Al Qaeda's" training camp at Darunta, Afghanistan was under the operational control of British and American intelligence in 1995. Edmonds's latest revelations suggest that relationship continued well past 1995 and up to the 9/11 attacks. WMR's recent information from private military sources goes even further -- U.S. intelligence cooperation with "Al Qaeda" lasted well past 9/11 and continues to the present day.

INTERPOL is apparently aware of the connections between U.S. intelligence and private military companies on one side and "Al Qaeda" interests on the other. However, INTERPOL has effectively ignored pursuing the leads brought to its attention by some member states. INTERPOL's Secretary General is Ronald Noble, an African-American who served as Treasury Undersecretary for Enforcement under President Bill Clinton. During the Reagan administration, Noble served from 1984 to 1989 as Assistant US Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the US Department of Justice. For those hoping that the Justice Department will go where INTERPOL will not tread, it is important to point out that working under Noble in the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section was Eric Holder, Barack Obama's Attorney General.

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