Mossad spy chief on 9/11: We realized rules for fighting terror had to change
When American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower on September 11, 2001, then-Mossad chief Efraim Halevy was in the middle of a meeting with then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.'If we cannot name our enemy, how can we ever expect to defeat it?'
“Suddenly someone came in the room, passed him a piece of paper. And he said to me, ‘Something has happened. I think you shouldn’t be here, you should be in your office.’ I said, ‘What happened?’ He told me briefly, and I was off on my way,” Halevy recalled, speaking to The Times of Israel ahead of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
“The 9/11 events caught everyone by surprise,” he said.
Halevy, 86, had been the head of the Mossad spy agency for three and a half years when two planes hit the World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, after the passengers regained control of the aircraft from the hijackers and prevented it from hitting its target, which investigators believe was either the White House or the United States Capitol.
The British-born spymaster was wary of revisiting many of the technical questions of the Mossad’s activities following the attacks — what they knew and when and what was shared with the US — but he said there was a general effort to bring whatever relevant information it collected with the Americans.
“I’m now well past 80 and to start going into my memory, which has all kinds of ‘boxes,’ some which are very full and some of which are emptying up — I would rather not go into that minefield,” he said.
“We had an understanding that on this issue we had to cooperate in bringing information [to the US] if it came our way and to initiate activities to gather information subsequent to the attack.”
Halevy recalled a grim mood in the Mossad following the attack and not only out of an understanding that a major event had taken place with the potential to significantly reshape the world.
Steven Emerson is considered one of the most esteemed experts on Islamic Jihad. As early as 1992, he sounded the alarm that a major attack on US soil was just a matter of time, but no one seemed to care. Speaking with Israel Hayom, he has vivid memories of 9/11, as if it happened yesterday.
Unlike most Americans who were shocked by the horrific events, he was not surprised. In fact, about a month before the attack he predicted that something big was imminent, but again, to no avail.
Q: What lit up your interest in going after the subject of the jihad in America and how it happened, a decade or so before 9/11.
"In December 1992, I had been working as an investigative correspondent for CNN (my second year for CNN; my 12th year as a journalist). In late December I got a tip that in Oklahoma City, the Iran-Contra Special Prosecutor was going to unveil his final report on the Iran-Contra affair but I didn't know what day. So I flew to Oklahoma City on December 24, the day before Christmas and checked into a downtown hotel, waiting any day for the report to be released. Well on December 25, Christmas Day, everything was closed, even the restaurant in the hotel. So I took my rented car and drove around downtown looking for a fast-food restaurant and I suddenly passed a most unusual sight as I drove near the Oklahoma City Convention Center: Streaming in and out of the Center were thousands of men and women dressed in traditional Middle East clothing – women wearing hijabs and men wearing the galabias (long robes). My first instinctive reaction was that there must have been a film being made and that these folks were extras. So I parked my car nearby and went inside the convention center. I immediately realized that this was actually a convention of some kind – I really didn't know what kind until I went down to the convention floor where there were scores of tables, each one cluttered with books, audio and video cassettes, and pamphlets or Middle East clothing for sale. I felt a bit conspicuous but I was warmly welcomed from the table as I began collecting the books, cassettes, and pamphlets. Some were in Arabic, but many were in English. And the ones that were in English had very radical anti-American, anti-Israeli, and antisemitic rhetoric with names of organizations based in Tampa, Florida; Boston, Massachusetts; Bridgeview, Illinois; Brooklyn, NY; Tucson, Arizona – from all over the country.
"I soon discovered that the organization hosting this conference was called the Muslim Arab Youth Convention or MAYA for short. (Only later would I found out that it was founded and headed by Abdullah bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's half brother). In fact, I was warmly welcomed by one of the attendees – Abdullah, who identified himself as a 'revert' to Islam (since everyone in the world is born a Muslim including Jews and Christians, one doesn't convert to Islam; rather one reverts to Islam). Abdullah told me he had been born a Jew but had reverted to Islam. He took me under his wing and actually allowed me to accompany him as his guest to 'Palestine Night' that very evening where we sat in the section of converts or reverts. The speakers including Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal, Muslim Brotherhood leader Kamal Helbawi and leaders of other radical Islamist groups including Al Gama al Islamiya. Although the fiery speeches were in Arabic with thunderous applause from the audience of about 3000, there was a simultaneous translation for all 25 of us in the revert section. At one point, everyone got up and starting chanting something about 'Yahudi.' So naturally, we all tried to join in as well. I asked Abdullah what were we chanting? He blithely responded, ' Oh, just 'Kill the Jews.'
Al-Qaida was smashed, but not crushed
In 2001, the organization al-Qaida struck a blow that shocked the world. In a series of coordinated terrorist attacks, unprecedented in nearly every aspect, the group managed to hit the US, the strongest superpower in the world, in its most vulnerable spot.Al-Qaeda leader, rumored dead, appears in video for 9/11 anniversary
Residents of the world were amazed to see how a small organization numbering only a few hundred or thousand members, located in far-off Afghanistan without any particularly impressive infrastructure, managed to organize such a destructive attack. In the years that have passed, al-Qaida has carried out other terrorist attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005).
But the American invasion of Afghanistan dealt the organization a harsh blow. Many of its people were killed or captured by the Americans. Cooperation between intelligence agencies worldwide made it difficult for terrorists from the group to operate freely, as they had done previously, and the scope of the attacks it perpetrated against the west gradually decreased.
But the most serious blow to al-Qaida came in 2011, when a team of US special forces killed its leader and founder Osama Bin Laden. His successor Ayman al-Zawahiri, served as a kind of spiritual authority, almost disconnected from what was happening in the field.
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was seen in a new video on Saturday, following rumors that he had died. The footage wsas released on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks the online activity of jihadist groups, reported that in a video released by al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri spoke on a number of subjects including the “Judaization of Jerusalem.”
Although the video was released on Saturday, al-Zawahri made no mention of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Rita Katz, SITE’s director noted.
Al-Zawahiri made references to a raid on a Russian military base by the al-Qaeda-linked Hurras al-Deen group in Syria, which it claimed on January 1, 2021, Katz added.
Al-Zawahiri also talked about the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, but Katz pointed out that it could have been said long ago following the signing of the Doha Agreement, in which the US pledged to remove its troops from the country.
“Thus, he could still be dead, though if so, would have been at some point in or after Jan 2021,” Katz tweeted.
Reminder, this is how some #Palestinians celebrated #September11! Just vile. pic.twitter.com/qNbKwBLWgz
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 11, 2021
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