by Sebastian Rotella and Josh Meyer, The Los Angeles Times
PARIS - Suspected al-Qaida operatives wiretapped by Italian police in the 13 months preceding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made apparent references to plans for major attacks involving airports, airplanes and the United States, according to transcripts obtained by the Los Angeles Times yesterday.
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials said they will study the transcripts because, although they are open to interpretation, the conversations could refer to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The language in the prosecutor’s report suggests that Italian authorities realized sometime after Sept. 11 that the conversations could be related to the attacks on the United States. If that is correct, it raises tantalizing questions about whether suspects in Yemen and Italy had advance knowledge of the plot by the Sept. 11 hijackers, an elite group whose operation appears to have been tightly compartmentalized for maximum secrecy.
In one conversation, a suspected Yemeni terrorist tells an Egyptian based in Italy about a massive strike against the enemies of Islam involving aircraft and the sky, a blow that “will be written about in all the newspapers of the world.”
“This will be one of those strikes that will never be forgotten. ... This is a terrifying thing. This is a thing that will spread from south to north, from east to west: The person who came up with this program is a madman from a madhouse, a madman but a genius, he is fixated on this program, it will leave everyone turned to ice,” he said.
That dialogue took place Aug. 12, 2000, in a Citroen car driven by Abdelkader Mahmoud Es Sayed, then 39, an Egyptian accused of being al-Qaida’s top operative in Italy and a man with ties to the inner circle of Osama bin Laden. Es Sayed had just picked up the Yemeni, Abdulsalam Ali Ali Abdulrahman, at the Bologna, Italy, airport, according to the transcript contained in a report by a Milan anti-terrorist prosecutor.
“In the future listen to the news and remember these words: Above the head. ... Remember well, remember well. ... The danger in the airports. ... There are clouds in the sky there in international territory, in that country the fire has been lit and is awaiting only the wind,” the Yemeni said.
That taped conversation and others surfaced during the course of recent trials of Milan-based al-Qaida terrorism suspects who were the object of intense surveillance and continuing wiretaps by Italian police in 2000 and 2001. The transcripts are part of investigative material that has been scrutinized anew “in the light of the tragic events of last September,’ according to the prosecutor’s report dated May 15.
The Italian report noted that there are “numerous and interesting elements concerning the relationship of Es Sayed with cells in Germany and the United States.” The leaders of the Sept. 11 plot were based in Hamburg, Germany, and trained along with the rest of the 19 hijackers at U.S. flight schools.
Little is known about the command structure that operated between Mohamed Atta, the suspected chief of the hijackers, and bin Laden. Moreover, the intercepts could be another of the indications emerging globally that authorities missed signs that attacks were in the works.
The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported yesterday that FBI experts had helped Italian police analyze the intercepts, whose sound quality was impaired by background noise.
But FBI and Justice officials said yesterday they planned to review the contents of the transcripts and that they were unaware of any help U.S. officials had provided to the Italians. Several officials said they were unfamiliar with the transcripts, but one Justice Department official noted that a small cadre of U.S. intelligence experts might have been privy to the transcripts.
Es Sayed was named in an April 19 order by the U.S. Treasury Department blocking the finances of suspected terrorists. Es Sayed was convicted in Egypt in connection with the 1997 massacre of 58 foreign tourists at Luxor, and wanted in Italy on charges of conspiracy to traffic in arms, explosives, chemical weapons, identity papers and aiding illegal immigration.
Es Sayed fled Italy to Afghanistan in July 2001, after Italian police rounded up his accomplices in a Tunisian-dominated network accused of plotting against U.S. targets.
In addition to being imam of a Milan mosque regarded as an al-Qaida operations center, he allegedly commanded a network that specialized in providing forged documents. He allegedly had close ties to Ayman al Zawahiri, the Egyptian considered bin Laden’s second-in-command, as well as extremists in Sudan and Egypt, according to the Italian report. Es Sayed is believed to have died during the U.S. military strikes on Afghanistan.
His visitor traveled on a Yemeni diplomatic passport, according to the Italian report. Abdulrahman allegedly has ties to al-Qaida.
At one point, the two men discussed the U.S. hunt for bin Laden, according to the transcript. The transcripts are less clear on to what extent, if any, they had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The comments about major actions could conceivably refer to other plots, such as a foiled plot to use an airplane against world leaders assembled for the G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy, in July 2001.
Nonetheless, there are intriguing references to secretive preparations involving the United States and Germany.
On Jan. 24, 2001, police taped a conversation in the Citroen between Es Sayed and Ben Soltane Adel, a Tunisian later convicted of belonging to the Milan cell.
“Will these work for the brothers who are going to the United States?” Adel asked, apparently referring to fake documents.
Es Sayed responded angrily, according to the transcript: “Don’t ever say those words again, not even joking!” he said.
At the time of the conversation, some of the hijackers had already entered the United States and begun flight training, and some had not. All of them, however, used their real identities so they would not have necessarily needed fraudulent documents provided by the Milan cell.
Another “very important” conversation, according to the report, took place Feb. 12, 2001. It was during a telephone call from Es Sayed to the telephone of Abdulrahman, the Yemeni, and was answered by an unidentified man named Abdelwahab.
“I heard you had entered America,” Es Sayed said, according to the transcript.
“I’m sorry but we weren’t able to get in,” Abdelwahab responded. “It’s our greatest desire and our objective.” That dialogue is interesting among other reasons because a suspected accomplice of the hijackers failed in his attempts to enroll in U.S. flight schools after being rejected for a visa. That suspect, Ramzi Binalshib, is a Yemeni who remained in Hamburg and allegedly helped finance the plotters from there.
Later in the conversation, the two men also discuss a German-based group, apparently Islamic extremists, described as “ten men with whom no one can make contact.” In addition to the Hamburg cell, whose leaders by the time of the conversation were in the U.S., al-Qaida also had cells in Frankfurt and Duisburg.
The Italian case is not the first in which European investigators say wiretaps may indicate suspects were discussing the Sept. 11 attacks ahead of time. In Spain, a country believed to have played a significant role in planning for the attacks, authorities charged members of a Milan cell as accomplices based largely on wiretaps of Islamic extremists.
An unidentified suspect in London told the head of the Madrid cell in a taped phone call last August that he “was taking courses and had entered the field of aviation.” Spanish investigators interpreted that as references to the airborne attack.
In the Milan transcripts, Abdulrahman used similar language. He told Es Sayed: “I’m studying airplanes. I hope, God willing, that I can bring you a window or a piece of an airplane the next time we see each other.” The transcript says that comment was followed by laughter.
Later, according to the transcript, he said the fight against Islam’s enemies would be waged “with any means we can combat them, using ... airplanes: They won’t be able to stop us even with their heaviest weapons.”