Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the September 11 Attacks and Their Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning: The Need for a Public Inquiry Gerald Shea September 15, 2004 M E M O R A N D U M TO: THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the September 11 Attacks and Their Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning: The Need for a Public Inquiry________ I am an international corporate lawyer, writing to you today about a matter of public policy that is relevant to the circumstances surrounding, and our preparedness for, the catastrophic attacks on September 11, 2001. I do not know whether the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (the “Commission”) or the Senate and House Committees on Intelligence (the “Committees”) have had the opportunity to consider these issues carefully. If so, I hope this memorandum will be helpful. If not, I respectfully urge them, in accordance with the mandate of the Commission’s charter and in the exercise of the Committees’ responsibilities, to investigate the facts and resolve the questions presented. I regret that this memorandum comes to the Commission after the publication of its Final Report this past July (the “Commission’s Final Report”). As will become evident, however, it has taken some time to assemble the facts from the raw data and other information set forth in available governmental and other reports and relevant documents in the public record. Moreover, and in any event, the need to examine and resolve the compelling issues presented here outweighs the mere appearance of completeness by putting a permanent end to the Commission’s work. It is far more important, to all of us, that the Commission’s work be accurate and complete or, at the very least, that the Commission urge that these questions be explored and resolved by another panel as independent, distinguished and objective as itself. Both the Senate and House Committees should endeavor to explore and resolve these issues as well. 1. General Preliminary Conclusions This memorandum, on the basis of the information set forth below, the Exhibits hereto and the reports and other documents cited herein, comes to the following general preliminary conclusions. The confirmation or effective rebuttal of these conclusions can be arrived at only by a public inquiry and a thorough examination of all necessary and appropriate witnesses and all relevant documentary and other evidence. A detailed summary of these tentative conclusions is set forth at pages 49 to 52. I emphasize at the outset that the purpose of this memorandum is not to accuse any individual or individuals (excluding the hijackers themselves), or any company, of any unlawful act or any other act harmful to the United States. That will be the task of others only after, and solely if justified by, the determination of all the relevant facts in the course of the public inquiry.-- 1. In the months leading up to September 11, 2001, the Israeli DEA Groups1 were spying on the United States.2 They were at the same time keeping Arab groups in our country under surveillance, including the future hijackers and other FBI suspects in the catastrophic attacks of September 11. The base of operations for both the Israeli DEA Groups and the future hijackers of the World Trade Center Planes and the Pennsylvania Plane was in and around Hollywood, Florida. 2. During the same period, the Israeli New Jersey Group was keeping under surveillance Arab groups in Bergen and Hudson Counties, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, including the future hijackers of the Pentagon Plane, whose center of operations was also in Bergen and Hudson Counties. The Israeli New Jersey Group appears to have been aware, before they occurred, that hijackings had been planned by Arab terrorists, as evidenced by their jubilation when the World Trade Center was first struck, by the North Tower Plane. The leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group, who has fled the United States for Israel, is included, along with the names of the hijackers and FBI suspects, on the May 2002 FBI Suspect List. 3. The Israeli Government, through its external security agency, Mossad, warned the United States in August 2001 that an impending catastrophic attack on our soil was being planned by Arab terrorist cells located in the United States. The warnings were the result of the Israeli Groups’ surveillance of the future hijackers in this country. 4. The Mossad warnings were too vague and too late to have enabled the United States to take any action to prevent the imminent attacks at unspecified locations in the U.S., or to detain the individuals who were planning them. 5. Why the Israeli government decided not to share with us all the critical information they had, and the extent of that information, is a subject for the public inquiry. They may have thought some sort of warning prudent in the event their surveillance activities later became a matter of public knowledge. But any energetic Israeli effort to assist the United States in preventing the attacks would not have served their strategic interest, in view of the disastrous effect those attacks were likely to have on the relationships between the United States and the Arab world. As a leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group said when he was arrested on the afternoon of September 11, “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems.” 6. Whether and to what extent the CIA, though surely not aware of the plans of the future hijackers before the attacks, might have been aware of or condoned the Israeli Groups’ surveillance of Arab groups generally in the United States prior to September 11 is a further question that must be explored in the course of the public inquiry. The CIA’s explanation of why two future hijackers were placed on a Watchlist in August 2001, as set forth in the Commission’s Final Report, is implausible and may have been designed to conceal the Israeli warnings. This consideration, along with other important factors discussed below, opens the door to a thorough investigation of this issue as well. ---------------------------------------- 12. Detailed Summary Set forth below is a detailed summary of the tentative conclusions reached in this memorandum, which amply illustrate the urgent need for a public inquiry into the activities of the Israeli DEA Groups and the Israeli New Jersey Group. The inquiry must include, without limitation, the examination of members of the Israel Groups and related persons; officials of the Israeli government and certain of its agencies, including Mossad; FBI suspects, agents of the DEA, the INS and the FBI; certain local law enforcement officials; agents of the CIA (in camera to the extent required); other intelligence sources cited by the public press to the extent possible; the boxes of documents and computer hard drives (referred on page 29) seized by the FBI from the Israeli New Jersey Group; and of all other relevant documents, reports, communiqués and information.-- 1. The Israeli DEA Groups were spying on the Drug Enforcement Agency and thus upon the United States. The DEA itself has concluded that they were probably engaged in organized intelligence gathering on our soil. 2. A highly regarded American journal knowledgeable about Israeli affairs, has concluded (a) based on its own sources, that the Israeli DEA Groups were spying on radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism, and (b) based on the representations of a former American intelligence official regularly briefed on these matters by law enforcement officials, that (i) at least two members of the Israeli New Jersey Group were Mossad operatives, (ii) Urban Moving, the company used by the Israeli New Jersey Group, was a front for Mossad and its operatives, and (iii) the Israeli New Jersey Group was spying on local Arabs. 3. The intelligence sources of a substantial American television network report that the Israeli DEA Groups may have gathered information about the September 11 attacks in advance, and not shared it with the United States. One investigator said that evidence linking the Israeli DEA Groups to such intelligence gathering was classified and could not be disclosed. 4. The Israeli DEA Groups were comprised of 125 or more Israelis operating on our soil. Their leaders and apparent associates included military commanders and experts with military backgrounds in intelligence, electronic intercepts and telecommunications. 5. The wiretapping and intelligence expertise of members of both Israeli Groups, and the use of vans in local neighborhoods where the future hijackers were planning the attacks, and the extensive use by the hijackers of cell phones and land lines, made the Israeli Groups ideally suited to gather information regarding the hijackers’ plans. 6. The principal operation of the Israeli DEA Groups was located in and around Hollywood, Florida, the central training and staging ground for the hijacking of North and South Tower Planes and the Pennsylvania Plane. The addresses and places of residence of the members of the Israeli DEA Groups in Hollywood itself were within hundreds of yards those of the future hijackers. 7. The operations of both the Israeli New Jersey Group and the hijackers of the Pentagon Plane were centered in Hudson and Bergen Counties in New Jersey, within a common radius of about six miles. 8. All five celebrating members of the Israeli New Jersey Group arrested on September 11 were aware, when the North Tower Plane struck the World Trade Center, based on their immediate reaction to the attack and the information said to be contained in their van, that the attack had been planned and carried out by Arab terrorists. 9. After being questioned by the FBI on September 11, the leader of the Israeli New Jersey Group immediately fled the United States to Israel. His name and aliases appear, along with those of the hijackers and other FBI suspects, on the May 2002 FBI Suspect list. 10. Israeli intelligence officials have reported that two senior officials of Mossad warned the United States in August 2001 that as many as 200 terrorists on American soil were planning an imminent large-scale attack on high visibility targets on the American mainland. One press report states that in August Mossad provided the CIA with the names of future hijackers Khaled al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi. 11. The CIA’s explanation of how Mihdhar’s and Hazmi’s names were placed on the Watchlist through the spontaneous efforts of CIA and FBI agents is not only difficult to follow but, as the sole reason for the Watchlisting, hardly credible. 12. Mossad’s own information appears to have come from its sources inside the United States. All of the facts and circumstances set forth in this memorandum appear to show that Mossad’s two likely sources of information were: (a) the Israeli DEA Groups, comparable in number to that of the Arab suspects and who appear to have tracked the future hijackers in their central places of operation and in other states, and (b) the Israeli New Jersey Group, operating through their Mossad front in another principal locus of operations of the future hijackers, two of whom were Mossad agents, and five of whom appeared immediately aware of the origin of the attacks on September 11. 13. While little direct evidence supports the contention that the CIA was aware of or condoned the Israeli Groups’ tracking of Arab terrorist groups in the United States prior to September 11, the CIA’s pressing for the expulsion of members of the Israeli DEA Groups when they were detained before September 11, their failure to cooperate with the FBI, their circuitous explanation of how the above two hijackers were placed on the Watchlist, and other relevant considerations require that the issue be taken up as a part of the public inquiry into these painful events. Gerald Shea Full PDF here: https://www.antiwar.com/rep2/MemorandumtotheCommissionandSelectCommitteesbold.pdf hashed to the bitcoin time-chain 9/10/2025 for utility with the ordinals protocol Standby