From the right wing, propaganda rag, World Net Daily:
wnd.com
<<<Rosters of officers in Saddam's Fedayeen list Lt. Col. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was present at the January 2000 al-Qaida "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9-11 attacks were planned, the Wall Street Journal reports....
Among the al-Qaida operatives in attendance were the two who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon – Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi – and Ramzi bin al Shibh, the operational planner of the 9-11 attacks.
Also in attendance was Tawfiz al Atash, a high-ranking Osama bin Laden lieutenant and mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.
Shakir left Malaysia four days after the summit finished, Jan. 13, 2000, then turned up in Qatar, where he was arrested Sept. 17, 2001, four days after the attacks.
A search uncovered phone numbers of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers' safe houses and contacts and information related to a 1995 al-Qaida plot to blow up a dozen commercial airliners over the Pacific.
But Shakir, inexplicably, was released after a brief detention and flew to Amman, Jordan, where he was arrested again. The Jordanians released him, however, with the OK of the CIA, after pressure from the Iraqis and Amensty International.>>>
It's worth noting that at least 1 of the "terrorists" listed as being at the summit is known to still be alive, which raises the question of how anyone at the summit was identified.
guardian.co.uk
While the article is a nonsense collection of unsubstantiated hearsay, I thought the bit about Shakir being arrested twice and let go twice was interesting. No source for the information is given, which may mean it's pure fantasy like the rest of the piece, but if true, one might wonder at what sort of terrorist had the kind of clout to walk at a time when the entire world was on a witch hunt for terrorists. Especially if the CIA wanted him turned loose. |
