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THE NYTIMES

* * * * *

Thursday October 28, 1993 Page A1

"Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart
Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast"

By Ralph Blumenthal

Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.

The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad Salem, should be used, the informer said.

The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings that Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as being in a far better position than previously known to foil the February 26th bombing of New York City's tallest towers.

The explosion left six people dead, more than a thousand people injured, and damages in excess of half-a-billion dollars. Four men are now on trial in Manhattan Federal Court [on charges of involvement] in that attack.

Mr. Salem, a 43-year-old former Egyptian Army officer, was used by the Government [of the United States] to penetrate a circle of Muslim extremists who are now charged in two bombing cases: the World Trade Center attack, and a foiled plot to destroy the United Nations, the Hudson River tunnels, and other New York City landmarks. He is the crucial witness in the second bombing case, but his work for the Government was erratic, and for months before the World Trade Center blast, he was feuding with the F.B.I.

Supervisor `Messed It Up'

After the bombing, he resumed his undercover work. In an undated transcript of a conversation from that period, Mr. Salem recounts a talk he had had earlier with an agent about an unnamed F.B.I. supervisor who, he said, "came and messed it up."

"He requested to meet me in the hotel," Mr. Salem says of the supervisor.

"He requested to make me to testify, and if he didn't push for that, we'll be going building the bomb with a phony powder, and grabbing the people who was involved in it. But since you, we didn't do that."

The transcript quotes Mr. Salem as saying that he wanted to complain to F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington about the Bureau's failure to stop the bombing, but was dissuaded by an agent identified as John Anticev.

Mr. Salem said Mr. Anticev had told him,

"He said, I don't think that the New York people would like the things out of the New York Office to go to Washington, D.C."

Another agent, identified as Nancy Floyd, does not dispute Mr. Salem's account, but rather, appears to agree with it, saying of the `New York people':

"Well, of course not, because they don't want to get their butts chewed."

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Mossad Link to First WTC Bombing Raises Eyebrows

Eight years ago a prescient article appeared in The Village Voice, which bears noting in the aftermath of the terror of Sept. 11.

Exclusive To American Free Press

By Michael Collins Piper

Here are the facts about the Mossad connection to the first attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) revealed by investigative reporter Robert I. Friedman in the Aug. 3, 1993 article in The Village Voice, an independent left-wing New York weekly that has occasionally dared to raise criticisms of Israel.

Friedman reported that Ahmad Ajaj, a 27-year-old West Bank Palestinian held in federal custody for conspiring to bomb the World Trade Center, may have been a Mossad mole, according to Israeli intelligence sources.

Ajaj was arrested at Kennedy Airport on Sept. 1, 1992, after he arrived on a Pakistani International flight from Peshawar carrying a forged Swedish passport and bomb-making manuals. He was taken into custody, and subsequently pleaded guilty to entering the country illegally.

Ajaj's traveling companion was Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, an Iraqi who law enforcement sources say is a "key player" in the World Trade Center bombing.

Although the FBI identified Ajaj as a senior intifada terrorist, with links to Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist organization, Kol Ha'ir, a respected Hebrew-language weekly published in Jerusalem, said Ajaj was never involved in intifada activities or with Hamas or even the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Instead, according to Kol Ha'ir, Ajaj was actually a petty crook arrested in 1988 for counterfeiting U.S. dollars out of East Jerusalem. Ajaj was convicted of counterfeiting and then sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.

According to Friedman, writing in The Village Voice: "It was during his prison stay that Mossad, Israel's CIA, apparently recruited him, say Israeli intelligence sources. By the time he was released after having served just one year, he had seemingly undergone a radical transformation."

Friedman reports that Ajaj had suddenly become a devout Muslim and an outspoken hard-line nationalist. Then, Ajaj was arrested for smuggling weapons into the West Bank, supposedly for El Fatah, a subdivision of the PLO.

But Friedman's sources in Israeli intelligence say that the arrest and Ajaj's subsequent deportation were "staged by Mossad to establish his credentials as an intifada activist. Mossad allegedly 'tasked' Ajaj to infiltrate radical Palestinian groups operating outside Israel and to report back to Tel Aviv. Israeli intelligence sources say that it is not unusual for Mossad to recruit from the ranks of common criminals."

After Ajaj's "deportation" from Israel, he showed up in Pakistan where he turned up in the company of the anti-Soviet mujahedin rebels in Afghanistan.

This in itself could point further toward Ajaj working for the Mossad, for according to Covert Action Information Bulletin (September 1987) the funding and supply lines for the mujahedin was not only the "the second largest covert operation" in the CIA's history, but it was also, according to former Mossad operative Victor Ostrovsky (writing in The Other Side of Deception) under the direct supervision of the Mossad.

After Ajaj's ventures with the mujahedin, he popped up in New York and purported to befriend members of a small so-called "radical" clique surrounding Sheikh Abdel-Rahman who was accused of being the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing.

On Feb. 26, 1993, the day of the first World Trade center bombing, Ajaj was "safe" in federal prison serving a six-month sentence for entering the country on a forged passport. Later, he was indicted for conspiracy in the WTC bombing.

Said Robert Friedman:

If Ajaj was recruited by Mossad, it is not known whether he continued to work for the Israeli spy agency after he was deported. One possibility, of course, is that upon leaving Israel and meeting radical Muslims close to the blind Egyptian sheikh, his loyalties shifted.

Friedman reports a second frightening possibility:

Another scenario is that he had advance know ledge of the World Trade Center bombing, which he shared with Mossad, and that Mossad, for whatever reason, kept the secret to itself. If true, U.S. intelligence sources speculate that Mossad might have decided to keep the information closely guarded so as not to compromise its undercover agent.

Friedman broke amazing ground with these revelations that were ignored by the mainstream press.

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From the 'Lectric Law Library's stacks
Who Bombed The World Trade Center? Fbi Bomb Builders Exposed!!

Combined report by Paul DeRienzo, Frank Morales and Chris Flash
From newspaper _The_Shadow_ Oct. 1994/Jan. 1995 Issue

Two cassette tape recordings, obtained by SHADOW reporter Paul DiRienzo
of telephone conversations between FBI informant Emad Salem and his
Bureau contacts reveal secret U.S. Government complicity in the February
26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in which six
people were killed and more than a thousand were injured.

After careful deliberation, the SHADOW believes the question regarding
the bombing boils down to the following: Did the FBI do the bombing,
utilizing informant Salem as an "agent provocateur" or did it fail to
prevent an independent Salem and his associates from doing it? The
taped conversations obtained by the SHADOW seem to indicate the former:

FBI Informant Edam Salem: "...we was start already building the bomb
which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by
supervising supervision from the Bureau and the DA and we was all
informed about it and we know that the bomb start to be built. By who?
By your confidential informant. What a wonderful great case!"

Who is Emad Salem? FBI bomber, Arab double-agent or just greedy?
Possibly a combination of all three. Salem is a former Egyptian Army
officer who is currently the U.S. government's star witness against
Egyptian cleric Dr. Omar Abdel Rahman, whom the FBI says was the
ringleader in several bombing plots, including the World Trade Center.
Shortly after the bombing at the Twin Towers (World Trade Center) the
U.S. government moved to take Salem into the Witness Protection program.

According to the FBI, Salem was aware of the plot ostensibly because he
had infiltrated Sheik Rahman and his associates. He was recruited as a
government informant shortly after the 1991 assassination of of right-
wing militant Rabbi Meir Kahane. As an associate of Rahman, Salem
traveled in the cleric's inner circle, surreptitiously recording
conversations, and selling his information to the Bureau. But unknown
to his FBI handlers, Salem was also secretly recording his conversations
with them, most likely to protect himself.

According to attorney Ron Kuby, after Salem was taken into the Witness
Protection program on June 24, 1993, he told the feds about the more
than 1,000 conversations he had recorded sometime between December, 1991
and June, 1993. Kuby says that while some of these tapes are not
significant, others contain substantive dealings with Salem and his FBI
handlers. Salem was actually bugging the FBI.

The World Trade Center bombing, along with subsequent alleged plots to
bomb prominent targets in New York City, spawned a number of federal
indictments and trials resulting in the conviction of more than a dozen
men, all of Arabic descent. Salem's exposure as a government informant
who had a year earlier infiltrated the group of men later charged in the
bombing conspiracy caused many to wonder why he and the FBI failed to
provide any warning of the pending World Trade Center bombing.

The answer now appears self-evident. According to William Kuntsler,
attorney for Ibrahim El-Gabrowny, one of those accused in the larger
bombing case, the entire conspiracy was the product of Salem, the
government informant. Kuntsler's law partner Ronald Kuby told the
SHADOW that within hours of the World Trade Center blast, Salem checked
into a midtown hospital, complaining of a loud ringing in his ears.
There is a growing belief that some of the four men charged and since
convicted and jailed for the World Trade Center bombing, Mohammed
Aboulihma, Mohammed Salameh, Nidal Ayyad and Ahmad Ajaj, may be innocent
[victims] of a government frame-up.

Attorneys for those convicted have maintained that the government's case
is circumstantial at best, with no evidence or motive linking the
accused with the bombing. The FBI and federal prosecutors have not as
yet responded to questions over the lack of warning of the attack on the
Twin Towers, despite the strategic placement of their informant.

Two possible scenarios emerge. One: Salem is a rogue FBI informant who
created the conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center for the money his
information about the plot (minus his role) would bring. An attorney
for one of the convicted men told the SHADOW that Salem was an FBI
informant from November of 1991 to the summer of 1992. The attorney
says that the FBI became aware of the World Trade Center bombing plot
through informant Salem during this period, but they refused to believe
his information or pay Salem's exhorbitant fees. In fact, the feds
claimed that they dropped Salem as an informant during the summer of
1992 after he refused or failed a lie detector test. This left Salem
with a bombing plot but no one to sell it to.

According to the attorney, Salem let the plot that he hatched go forward
and the World Trade Center was bombed so that he could get money and
publicity. The attorney says that within 48 hours of the bombing, the
FBI requested Salem to help them solve the case. Salem quickly pointed
the fingers at the defendants, all followers of Sheik Rahman.

So, who did it? From the above point of view, Salem constructed the
bomb plot with those whom he subsequently set up. The U.S. government
and its FBI were innocent bystanders who failed to prevent the carnage
due to their unwillingness to take Salem's claims seriously, despite his
close collaboration with Bureau agents for the better part of a year.

The other scenario looks like this: Informant Salem organized the bomb
plot with the "supervision" of the FBI and the District Attorney as part
of a classic entrapment setup. He befriended certain individuals,
possibly some of the defendants, convinced them that his intentions to
bomb the World Trade Center were sincere, and convinced them to get
involved. The bomb goes off. Greedy Salem, with his ears still
ringing, sells out his accomplices while attempting to sell more
information to the Bureau. In order to protect him and their
relationship, the FBI sequesters Salem and utilizes him against the real
target of the FBI, Sheik Rahman.

In one of the taped conversations between Salem and "Special Agent" John
Anticev, Salem refers to him and the Bureau's involvement in making the
bomb that blew up the World Trade Center. As Salem is pressing for
money while emphasizing his value as a Bureau asset, the conversation
moves in and out of references to the bombing and the FBI's knowledge of
the bomb making:

FBI: But ah basically nothing has changed. I'm just telling you for my
own sake that nothing, that this isn't a salary but you got paid
regularly for good information. I mean the expenses were a little bit
out of the ordinary and it was really questioned. Don't tell Nancy I
told you this. (Nancy Floyd is another FBI agent who worked with Salem
in his informant capacity. The second tape obtained by the SHADOW is of
a telephone conversation between Salem and Floyd -Ed.)

SALEM: Well, I have to tell her of course.

FBI: Well then, if you have to, you have to.

SALEM: Yeah, I mean because the lady was being honest and I was being
honest and everything was submitted with receipts and now it's
questionable.

FBI: It's not questionable, it's like a little out of the' ordinary.

SALEM: Okay. I don't think it was. If that what you think guys, fine,
but I don't think that because we was start already building the bomb
which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising
supervision from the Bureau and the DA and we was all informed about it
and we know what the bomb start to be built. By who? By your
confidential informant. What a wonderful great case! And then he put
his head in the sand I said "Oh, no, no, that's not true, he is son of a
bitch." (Deep breath) Okay. It's built with a different way in another
place and that's it.

FBI: No, don't make any rash decisions. I'm just trying to be as honest
with you as I can.

SALEM: Of course, I appreciate that.

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