Deceit, double-cross and the intelligence war against Islamist terrorism.
“We have an expression in Arabic”, the blind Egyptian cleric who ran al-Qaeda’s networks in the United States once told an interviewer, “everybody sings for those he loves”.
On February 26, 1993, a fifteen hundred kilogramme improvised explosive device went off in the underground parking garage of the World Trade Centre in New York — the very building that, eight years later, would be brought down by the Al-Qaeda. Six people were killed, and 1,042 injured. Investigators rapidly determined that the operation had been funded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged operational chief of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Its perpetrators were linked to the Brooklyn-based blind cleric, Omar Abdel Rahman.
Rahman, many experts have long suspected, was allowed to enter the United States by the Central Intelligence Agency in an effort to infiltrate Al-Qaeda — a high-stakes intelligence gamble that backfired spectacularly.
Ever since news broke that Lashkar-e-Taiba clandestine operative David Headley had been a Drug Enforcement Administration informant, speculation has grown that the Pakistani-American jihadist may also have worked for the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The evidence for the claim is thin. Headley’s links with the Lashkar, Federal Bureau of Intelligence detectives say, was only detected in July, 2009, when he posted inflammatory messages in an internet chat-room. Even at the time of his arrest, they claim, no evidence was available to suggest he had carried out pre-attack reconnaissance in Mumbai. For its part, the CIA has flatly denied any association with Headley.
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Moderate Islamist here
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