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Pakistan Source Under Cover When U.S. Confirmed Name
Fri Aug 6, 6:54 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Simon Cameron-Moore and Peter Graff
ISLAMABAD/LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. officials providing justification for anti-terrorism alerts revealed details about a Pakistani secret agent, and confirmed his name while he was working under cover in a sting operation, Pakistani sources said on Friday.
A Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested in Lahore secretly last month, had been actively cooperating with intelligence agents to help catch al Qaeda operatives when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers.
"After his capture he admitted being an al Qaeda member and agreed to send e-mails to his contacts," a Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters. "He sent encoded e-mails and received encoded replies. He's a great hacker and even the U.S. agents said he was a computer whiz."
"He was cooperating with interrogators on Sunday and Monday and sent e-mails on both days," the source said.
The New York Times published a story on Monday saying U.S. officials had disclosed that a man arrested secretly in Pakistan was the source of the bulk of information leading to the security alerts.
The newspaper named him as Khan, although it did not say how it had learned his name. U.S. officials subsequently confirmed the name to other news organizations on Monday morning. None of the reports mentioned that Khan was working under cover at the time, helping to catch al Qaeda suspects.
So the snipers that paralyzed and terrorized the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area are caught now. But it's worth thinking about how they were caught. After repeatedly slipping through the fingers of law enforcement, John Muhammad and Lee Salvo were caught because leaked information about the suspects' automobile and license number was picked up by members of the public, one of whom spotted the car within hours and alerted the authorities - blocking the exit from the rest area with his own vehicle to make sure they didn't escape. "You can deputize a nation," said one news official after the fact.
Yes. With proper information, the public can act against terrorists - often, as we found on September 11, faster and more effectively than the authorities. The key, as Jim Henley noted, is to "make us a pack, not a herd."
The problem is that this goes against the very grain of intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, and so on. Within bureaucracies in general - and doubly within intelligence and law enforcement bureaucracies - information is power, and power isn't something you want to share. And if you deputize a nation, doesn't that make the official deputies just a little bit less special?
The Friday-morning Putter revealed that an undercover operation on the far side of the world was starting to bear fruit. In mid-July, the Pakistanis, working with the CIA, had arrested a Qaeda operative named Mohammed Neem Noor Khan and "flipped" himturned him into an undercover agent who could lead investigators right into the Qaeda network. The 25-year-old computer engineer was a Qaeda facilitator, a midlevel logistics man who knew and communicated with the top operatives meeting to plan an attack on the United States. In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Townsend recalled thinking, "This is the real deal"a chance to crack the plot. It was the break the Feds had been praying for, but, unfortunately, also a chance to further bewilder the American public, who have been made fearful, cynical or just plain dizzy by trips up and down the threat ladder. In an effort to sort out what to believe, NEWSWEEK spoke with most of the senior intelligence officials involved in assessing what they call the "pre-election" plot. Constrained by secrecy and a desire to put a positive spin on the story, these officials were not entirely forthcoming, but they did reveal enough to gauge the seriousness of the Qaeda plot. The more difficult question is whether the public revelations not only unduly frightened the American people but, in the long run, made them less safe. U.S. officials firmly deny it, but a knowledgeable British source argues that, by going public, Bush administration officials compromised an ongoing surveillance operation that ultimately could have uncovered more about Al Qaeda operations around the world. Top U.S. intelligence officials do concede that they are often faced with difficult trade-offsmove now, and disrupt the plot? Or keep watching and waiting in hopes of learning more?
But will the current crackdown roll up a sleeper cell in America? Or did the news of his arrest tip off other operatives, still unknown, who have gone to ground, possibly inside the United States? Presumably, the targeted institutions are now safe, or at least safer. But do the terrorists have a Plan B to simply shift to a different set of targets? Even with Osama bin Laden on the run and much of its former leadership dead or in jail, Al Qaeda's central command remains surprisingly strong. But have some of its operating cells simply slipped below the radar?
KSM was apparently interested in recruiting African-Americans inside the United States. According to the intelligence document, al-Hindi noticed that a local British imam employed African-American bodyguards with families in Montana. "KSM tasked him with traveling to Montana to recruit the bodyguards' family members," according to the report, which does not reveal whether al-Hindi may have succeeded in this somewhat bizarre mission.
Since 9/11, al-Hindi has been living in Britain at least some of the time. Once his name surfaced in the KSM interrogations last year, he became a figure of considerable interest to U.S. and British intelligence. An elusive man who uses different aliases, he has apparently been the subject of on-and-off surveillance. After the Pakistanis and CIA captured Khan in mid-July, al-Hindi's name popped up againpotentially as a central player in the "pre-election" plot.
But in Washington, officials argued that keeping a low profileby, for instance, alerting just the security officers for the targeted institutionswouldn't work. The story would inevitably leak and cause an even bigger fuss because the government would be accused of hiding dangers from the public.
The U.S. government cannot come right out and admit this, but following the old rule of waiting and watching may not be tenable, given how little the intelligence community really knows about Al Qaeda and its possible presence inside the United States. Interviewed by NEWSWEEK, Townsend said that the intelligence community believes Al Qaeda has filled the positions vacated by KSM and others captured or killed. The talent level may not be as high, she says, but the organization goes on. The CIA and its foreign counterparts have identified some of the Qaeda operatives, but they are in the dark about others.
freeandfun1 said:Have you noticed how it was the "Times" that exposed the source and now the libs are asking, "should the ADMIN have released the name?". I believe this was a set-up by the NYT and the DNC to have something to "BASH BUSH" on. Yes, whoever CONFIRMED the name should be fired, but also, the times SHOULD HAVE shown some constraint in the name of nationals security. They again put politics above principle. Are we surprised?
freeandfun1 said:Have you noticed how it was the "Times" that exposed the source and now the libs are asking, "should the ADMIN have released the name?". I believe this was a set-up by the NYT and the DNC to have something to "BASH BUSH" on. Yes, whoever CONFIRMED the name should be fired, but also, the times SHOULD HAVE shown some constraint in the name of nationals security. They again put politics above principle. Are we surprised?
Kathianne said:I'm not so sure about that, I kind of agree with the pack, not a herd philosophy!
DKSuddeth said:the name 'plume' ring a bell with anyone?
DKSuddeth said:yes, it was debunked, but until such time as we knew that, there were a whole lot of people on opposite sides of the fence as they are now.
freeandfun1 said:Well, even in that story, my first response was, "find out who-dun-it and fire their asses!" However, once it became obvious there was much more to the story, I backed off. My first response will always be to "fire the bums" as I would rather err on the side of caution - altthough that too can be dangerous.
WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Monday ordered "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper to testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of a covert CIA (news - web sites) officer.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago wants Russert and Cooper to testify "regarding alleged conversations they had with a specified executive branch official," wrote U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan of Chicago. The official he referred to was not further identified in court papers.
Hogan ruled that Russert, who is also NBC's Washington bureau chief, and Time's Cooper must testify because the Supreme Court has ruled that reporters do not have an absolute privilege under the First Amendment to refuse to appear before a grand jury.
"There have been no allegations whatsoever that this grand jury is acting in bad faith or with the purpose of harassing these two journalists," Hogan wrote.
The grand jury is part of an investigation led by Fitzgerald appointed as a special prosecutor in this case into the leak last summer to syndicated columnist Robert Novak of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Disclosure of an undercover official's identity can be a felony. . .
Kathianne said:Weird, maybe we are channels: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...e=3&u=/ap/20040809/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak
