Out of Context, Part 4

We continue from Part 3 reviewing the Chairman’s Report Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, subtitled The Oklahoma City Bombing: Was There A Foreign Connection?

Phone Records Possibly Linking Yousef to Nichols

Ramzi Yousef was in the United States for about five months prior to his attack on the World Trade Center in February 1993. His cell phone records from that time period show that he placed three phone calls to the residence of a Filipina in Queens, New York named Mila Densing, with one call lasting approximately 30 minutes. At the time of the phone calls, Densing was living in the same row-house apartment building as Adora and Ernesto Malaluan, close friends and neighbors, who were also from Cebu City. Ernesto Malaluan is the cousin of Marife Nichols and owned the boarding house in Cebu City where Terry and Marife lived during their last trip to the Philippines.

The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee interviewed Ernesto and Adora Malaluan, who said they knew nothing about Ramzi Yousef or any of the aliases he used while in the United States. Mila Densing denied speaking to Yousef according to a source of the subcommittee, but she was unresponsive to official efforts to reach her, including certified mail sent by the subcommittee and numerous phone calls.

As Chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee in October 2005, I provided the FBI with the evidence showing Yousef’s phone calls to the close friends and neighbors of Terry Nichols' in-laws in Queens, but have not received a response that addressed these facts. To date, the FBI has not responded to my request for their assessment. Additionally, I asked the FBI for information from their Yousef investigation concerning Mila Densing. Inexplicably, they do not seem to have interviewed her.
As one would expect of someone willing to plot the death of fellow Americans, Nichols' own veracity is far from clear. His initial interview with police was replete with lies and half-truths. To this day, he repeatedly promises to disclose more information about the case, only to blame it on Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore, or hint of a sinister government conspiracy. At the same time, he has convinced his friends and family that he was a virtual patsy. Contrary to this passive image, McVeigh told his defense team that Nichols had actually threatened to kill him if he caught McVeigh sleeping with his wife. Furthermore, Nichols was on his own in the Philippines where he obviously believed his life was in danger.

Nichols has gotten something of a pass on the culpability of his participation in this horrific act of violence. His complicated attempts to manipulate those investigating OKBOMB, including the subcommittee, suggest capabilities that belie his image as subservient to McVeigh. To this day, Nichols does not fully acknowledge his complicity in this monstrous crime, seeking instead to draw attention to others, some of whom he self-servingly hints have yet to be exposed.

Nichols is obviously a liar and a manipulator -- he seems to have set up McVeigh to take most of the heat for the OKBOMB and, indeed, McVeigh was convicted and executed.

Just because Nichols is a liar, does that mean that everything he says is a lie?

Or, might there be some half-truths mixed in his stories, half-truths which, if properly sifted and analyzed, might yield valuable insights.

"To this day, he repeatedly promises to disclose more information about the case, only to blame it on Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore, or hint of a sinister government conspiracy."

What if Nichols -- a criminal conspirator -- was aware of other conspiratorial activities, perhaps involving government officials?

Here are some more quotes from the Sibel Edmonds case -- specifically from Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate by Jim Hogue, May 07, 2004, which I am taking out of context (in case you hadn't figured it out, that is where the name for this series came from):

JH: Can you explain more about what money you are talking about?

SE: The most significant information that we were receiving did not come from counter-terrorism investigations, and I want to emphasize this. It came from counter-intelligence, and certain criminal investigations, and issues that have to do with money laundering operations.

You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one. In certain points -- and they [the intelligence community] are separating those portions from just the terrorist activities. And, as I said, they are citing "foreign relations" which is not the case, because we are not talking about only governmental levels. And I keep underlining semi-legit organizations and following the money. When you do that the picture gets grim. It gets really ugly.

JH: Here's a question that you might be able to answer: What is al-Qaeda?

SE: This is a very interesting and complex question. When you think of al-Qaeda, you are not thinking of al-Qaeda in terms of one particular country, or one particular organization. You are looking at this massive movement that stretches to tens and tens of countries. And it involves a lot of sub-organizations and sub-sub-organizations and branches and it's extremely complicated. So to just narrow it down and say al-Qaeda and the Saudis, or to say it's what they had at the camp in Afghanistan, is extremely misleading. And we don't hear the extent of the penetration that this organization and the sub-organizations have throughout the world, throughout their networks and throughout their various activities. It's extremely sophisticated. And then you involve a significant amount of money into this equation. Then things start getting a lot of overlap -- money laundering, and drugs and terrorist activities and their support networks converging in several points. That's what I'm trying to convey without being too specific. And this money travels. And you start trying to go to the root of it and it's getting into somebody's political campaign, and somebody's lobbying. And people don't want to be traced back to this money.

Finally, this quote comes first in Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate, but I put it here last:

JH: Are you allowed to say that it's the Saudis?

SE: I cannot name any country. And I would emphasize that it's plural. I understand the Saudis have been named because fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. However, the names of people from other countries, and semi-legit organizations from other countries, to this day, have not been made public.

With these thoughts in mind, is it not interesting to consider the Ehrenfeld / Lappen article we are reviewing, beginning in my last post, Financial Onslaught, Part 1?

Stay tuned for Out of Context, Part 5 and Financial Onslaught, Part 2 !

Out of Context, Part 3

We continue from Part 2 looking at the Chairman’s Report Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, subtitled The Oklahoma City Bombing: Was There A Foreign Connection?

Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef

Lisa and Marife Torres had a Filipina friend and fellow "tour guide" in Shelton's mail order bride business named Vilma Elumbaring. Lisa claims that Vilma dated a man whose last name was "Khan" and that Marife, Vilma, and Khan were together on at least one occasion at a disco in Cebu one month before Terry Nichols first traveled there. This Khan could possibly be Yousef friend and fellow terrorist, Wali Khan, who trained aspiring terrorists in the Philippines and was later convicted of plotting to blow up U.S. airliners. According to one Abu Sayyaf (see below) member who trained with Khan, he was a master at making explosives. If the "Khan," identified by Vilma as part of the Cebu disco scene was convicted terrorist Wali Khan, that would place Terry Nichols and a Yousef ally in the same circles in Cebu City.

NOTE: The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee was unable to confirm the identity of Vilma's "Khan" because, even with the help of the Philippine National Police and the American Embassy in Manila, we could not locate Vilma Elumbaring or Tom Shelton. Additionally, the Subcommittee requested an interview with Wali Khan in Colorado’s Supermax prison, but Khan refused.

In addition to a "Khan" being with Marife's group in Cebu, a prominent member of the Philippine terrorist organization, Abu Sayyaf, made statements to investigators and police in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. Edwin Angeles had trained at the terrorist camp in Mindanao around the time Wali Khan was there. Angeles told McVeigh defense team interviewers that Terry Nichols had met with Yousef, Khan, and Murad on at least one occasion in Mindanao in the early 1990s.

Angeles' credibility is another matter. Members of the Philippine National Police insisted to Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee staff that Angeles was unreliable. The authorities asserted that Angeles was a drug user, a likely double agent, and had made several conflicting statements. He was released from a Philippine jail in 1997 and was promptly murdered in broad daylight on a public street. His statements about an alleged terrorist meeting that included Nichols and Yousef should not be ignored, but cannot be relied upon without verification. The subcommittee was unable to find such verification.

There is no doubt, however, that Nichols and Yousef were both in Cebu City in December and January prior to the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Yousef, having successfully escaped America after exploding a bomb in the World Trade Center in February 1993, had been living in Manila with Murad and Khan. They were working on their next two part plan, Project Bojinka: a conspiracy to place bombs on twelve American airliners which would explode over the Pacific Ocean, potentially killing hundreds of Americans, and to overtake the cockpits of American airliners and crash them into buildings such as the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Yousef decided to do a test-run of his airline-bombing plot in December 1994. He took a Philippine Airline flight from Manila where, after placing his test bomb underneath a seat, he disembarked in Cebu City. The bomb exploded on its way to Tokyo, killing a Japanese businessman. Meanwhile, Terry Nichols and his wife were in Cebu City, where Marife was attending college at Southwestern University.

In the December 1994 and January 1995 time period when Yousef and Nichols were in Cebu City, it is not known where Yousef stayed; however, items found one month later by the Philippine National Police in his Manila apartment suggest that he had either stayed at or visited the Sundowner Hotel, where Marife and Terry had met years before and where Tom Shelton ran his "tour guide" business. The opportunity for a Yousef-Nichols link-up during this time is clear. The proof, however, has not been established.

Note: Nichols hastily departed the Philippines immediately after the Yousef bomb operation was discovered and Murad was arrested in Manila. Shortly before, Nichols had arranged his reservations to leave at a later date. Inexplicably, his plans changed the day the Manila bomb plot was broken up. All this justifiably leads to speculation that the Bojinka bombing plot may have been tied to a more grandiose scheme. Had the Bojinka plot and the Oklahoma City bombing occurred in the same time frame, it would have been a spectacular worldwide attack on the American people. Evidence is circumstantial but serious questions remains.

What is interesting as you research the literature on the Oklahoma City bombing is that Nichols and McVeigh had worked together trying to make bombs, but many reports indicated their bombs didn't quite meet up to their expectations -- until Nichols finally returned from the Philippines a few months before the April 19th, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Building.

The possible connection between Nichols and Islamic extremist terrorist Ramzi Yousef could explain the effectiveness of the bombing in the Murrah Building quite well. Yousef was a very adept bomb-maker, and had trained many an Islamic terrorist in his craft. The obvious implication is that perhaps Yousef trained Nichols.

Of course, there are other possible explanations for the effectiveness of the blast, as well -- but was any of this seriously explored by the FBI during the investigation?

Terrorism just can't be separated from other criminal activities, and in particular, Islamic terrorism cannot be separated from narcotics trafficking.

The heroin that the Islamic extremists sell to fund their jihad destroys infidel societies, even as it provides evidence for the terrorist leaders to point to indicating how rotten infidel culture is and how infidel society must therefore be forced to submit or be destroyed.

In light of all this, I can't help but recall the following quote from 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

SE: In some cases where the FBI stumbles upon evidence of high-level officials being involved in drug-smuggling, they're even prevented from sharing it with the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency]. The Department of State just comes in and says, "Leave it."

You know, it's funny, after 9/11, the common criticism was that there was "no information-sharing" between the FBI, CIA, and the like, and this is why the terrorists pulled it off -- as if we didn't want to cooperate. No information-sharing? That's the biggest BS I ever heard!

Stay tuned for Part 4!

Out of Context, Part 2

First, we continue reviewing from Part 1 the Chairman's Report Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, subtitled The Oklahoma City Bombing: Was There A Foreign Connection?

Terry Nichols in the Philippines

Terry Nichols began traveling to the Philippines in August 1990. He traveled to Cebu City with Shelton Paradise Tours, a business run by Tom Shelton and his son, Earl, who were allegedly involved in several disreputable ventures. Shelton Paradise Tours touted itself as a "mail order bride business," but apparently was also a prostitution ring. Shelton ran ads in fringe publications in the United States targeted at men who wanted to travel to the Philippines to find women for pleasure or marriage. He also ran ads in the Cebu City daily newspaper for young women who wanted to escape a life of poverty by becoming mail order brides. His Cebu City ad was answered by a young woman named Flordaliza "Lisa" Torres, who later brought her sister, Marife, into the business.

Marife met Terry Nichols on his first trip to the Philippines in August 1990 and the couple married in November of the same year. When Marife joined him in the United States a short time later, she was pregnant with another man's child. When interviewing Marife’s friends and family in the Philippines, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee discovered that Nichols may have promised the Torres family land and U.S. citizenship, even though he lacked regular employment and had no means of support other than occasional odd jobs. Terry and his Filipina bride moved to his family's farm in Michigan, where her child was born, before eventually moving to Herington, Kansas.

Terry Nichols' Activities in the Philippines

On his first trip to Cebu with Shelton Paradise Tours, Terry Nichols was initially introduced to "tour guide" Daisy Gelaspi. They spent about four days together and, in a sworn signed statement to police and investigators, Gelaspi claimed that Nichols asked her if she knew anyone in the military or anyone else who could help him make a bomb. Additionally, on his final trip to the Philippines just months before the Oklahoma City bombing, Nichols had with him a bomb-making book entitled The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives. Nichols' interest in bomb making during his trips to the Philippines raises some doubt about whether he was genuinely there for a wife, or whether he was there to network with underground criminals and terrorists.

Terry Nichols' behavior prior to his last trip to the Philippines in November 1994 also raises questions. He left a sealed note for his ex-wife that instructed her to open it in case he did not return. She opened it almost immediately and found a letter from Nichols telling her where he had hidden $20,000 for her and their son. When asked directly about this by the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, his answers were not credible; Nichols suggested the $20,000 came from babysitting money. Nichols had also written a note to McVeigh saying "Your [sic] on your own, go for it." The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee inquired into why Nichols would have feared for his life on his last trip to the Philippines as well as where he got $20,000. Our answers are speculative at best. The money could have come from his robbery of Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore, but this could not be confirmed. Additionally, it has not been ascertained as to why Nichols feared for his life.

Nichols' skill as a terrorist seems to have grown while in the Philippines. Initially he was an unsuccessful bomb-maker. According to Michael Fortier's testimony, Nichols and McVeigh failed miserably when they tested an explosive device in the Arizona desert just six months before they bombed the Murrah building. After Nichols' final trip to the Philippines, he and McVeigh were fully capable of manufacturing the crude but deadly bomb that was used to bring down the Murrah federal building.

This connection to the Philippines is significant. An excerpt from Islamic Terrorism in the Philippines -- an Updated Perspective helps us understand why (see original for footnotes):

The Worldwide Islamic Jihad Arrives in the Philippines

During the 1980s, Hashim Salamat joined the Arab and non-Arab Muslim volunteers fighting in Afghanistan, where he first met 'Abdullah 'Azzam and Usama bin Ladin. During that same time period MILF [Moro Islamic Liberation Front] continued to manage a guerilla and terrorist campaign against the Philippine regime. Throughout the 1990s the MILF forged ties with the Philippine organization Abu Sayyaf and with bin Ladin's al-Qa'ida, using the latter's training camps in Afghanistan and advisors that were sent to the Philippines in order to train members of the Front. In terms of numbers, it is estimated that MILF is comprised of anywhere between 8,000 and 15,000 fighters, some of which are Afghan Alumni. ⁴

In 1991, another split occurred within MNLF [Moro National Liberation Front] when 'Abd al-Raziq Abu Bakr Janjalaani-an Afghan Veteran who opposed Miswaari's moderate stance-quit the Front and founded the Abu Sayyaf Group. The group is named after Janjalaani's alias during the war in Afghanistan - "Bearer of the Sword". The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) sought to create an independent religious Islamic state in the southern Philippines, and argued that this objective can only be obtained through the use of force. Since the 1990s, the organization has directed terrorist attacks against Christian institutions and leaders in addition to kidnappings and murders, especially of foreign nationals. ASG is considered the smallest yet most radical of the Islamic organizations operating in the Philippines, and its forces stand at approximately 200 Mujahideen, some of them Afghan Veterans and Afghan Alumni, andh an additional 2,000 supporters.⁵

Since its inception ASG has maintained strong links with other Afghan Alumni. The Group used their experiences in guerilla warfare and terror in order to intensify the struggle against the regime and to heighten its reputation among competing Islamic organizations. It also aided those Afghan Alumni that needed a base of operations to launch terrorist acts under the framework of the worldwide Islamic Jihad. The most famous example of these instances was the tie between ASG and Ramzi Yusuf, an Afghan Veteran of Iraqi origin who is considered the mastermind behind the first World Trade Center attack in New York on February 26, 1993. Yusuf, who met Janjalaani some time in the 1980s during the war in Afghanistan, used ASG's infrastructure in the Philippines in 1994 for an attempt to simultaneously bring down two American passenger airlines in the Far East using explosive devices hidden in the planes. He also planned to attack Pope John Paul II during his visit to the Philippines in the beginning of 1995. Yusuf's plans were never fulfilled, however, as a result of a fire that broke out in his hiding place, which led to the capture of an accomplice and the revelation of the plots. Yusuf escaped to Pakistan, where he was arrested in February 1995 and extradited to the United States.⁶

Usama bin Ladin intently followed the events taking place in the Philippines. Pakistani and Philippine intelligence sources believe that bin Ladin, who knew Janjalaani from Afghanistan, directed Jamaal Khalifah, another Afghan Veteran and bin Ladin's brother-in-law, to offer financial aid to Janjalaani in the summer of 1991 in order to expand his organization. According to these sources, bin Ladin later ordered Khalifah to convince Ramzi Yusuf and Wali Khan Amin Shah to go to the Philippines and train members of ASG. Yossef Bodansky and 'Abd al-Rahim 'Ali noted that bin Ladin even visited the Philippines in the winter of 1993 and introduced himself to the regime as a Saudi investor seeking to aid the Muslims in the south. As a result, he gained increased cooperation in achieving these goals. Later bin Ladin appointed Jamaal Khalifah as the man in charge of transferring the aid.⁷

It is safe to assume that bin Ladin opposed both the formal negotiations held in November 1993 between government representatives and Nur Miswaari, who agreed to abandon his demands to secede the Muslim south from the Philippines Republic, and the peace treaty signed between Miswaari and the Philippine government in September 1996, which resulted in Miswaari's appointment to governor of the south.⁸

As time passed, Janjalaani strengthened his ties with al-Qa'ida. In February 1998, he joined bin Ladin's Worldwide Islamic Front for Holy War against the Jews and the Crusaders. He was aided by the training camps of al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan and by the al-Qa'ida advisors sent to the Philippines in order to train his fighters. As such, Janjalaani held ties with Salamat's Islamic Front and continued to forge ties with radical Islamic leaders throughout the world who fought alongside him in Afghanistan.⁹

[snip]

A Hotbed for the Recruitment and Perpetration of Terrorism

The United States has called Mindanao Island and the Sulu archipelago in the southern Philippines a sanctuary, training and recruiting ground for terrorist organizations. According to Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, chief of the US Pacific Command, the Philippines, along with Indonesia and Malaysia, has served as a center for the activities of terrorists and their supporters in Southeast Asia. He added that the governments of these countries are cooperating with Washington in the war against global terror. Fallon did not say what terrorist groups were operating in the southern Philippines, but Manila previously admitted that dozens of members of the Southeast Asian terror group JI, including Dulmatin-who is linked to the deadly 2002 Bali bombings-were hiding in Mindanao.²⁴

Local military estimates placed the number of ASG terrorists operating in Mindanao at about 510 active members, with 30 JI extremists. Led by Al-Qadhafi Janjalaani, most of them are holding out in the dense jungles of Central Mindanao, offering refuge to JI leaders Umar Patek and Dulmatin who are both wanted for the Bali attacks.25 The most recent reports indicate that Dulmatin is living under ASG's protection in exchange for providing bomb-making expertise.²⁶

In the middle of March 2006 local troops captured alleged ASG weapons courier Julkaram Hadjail in Jolo and in a separate incident security forces killed several militants on the island. Security forces also recovered in early March 2006 a cache of explosives and homemade bombs near a highway in Jolo's Indanan town where troops regularly pass.²⁷

So, Congressman Rohrabacher addresses ties between the Oklahoma City bombing and a place now known as "A Hotbed for the Recruitment and Perpetration of Terrorism" -- a place now complete with someone who has a reputation for "providing bomb-making expertise."

Just like back in the 1990's, when the Philippines had someone else with a reputation for "providing bomb-making expertise."

From Cracking the Case: An Interview With Sibel Edmonds by Scott Horton, August 22, 2005:

SE: And the main media is treating it as if "here's one piece of information the 9/11 Commission didn't include." I had this press conference last summer and together with 25 national security experts. These sort of people from NSA, CIA, FBI. And we provided the public during this press conference with a list of witnesses that had provided direct information, direct information. Some had to do with finance of al-Qaeda. These are people from NSA, CIA, and FBI to the 9/11 Commission, and the 9/11 Commission omitted all of this information, even though some of this information had been established as fact. One of them had to do with certain informants in April 2001. This informant provided very specific information about the attacks. The other had to do with certain information the FBI had in July and August 2001, where blueprints and building composites of certain skyscrapers were being sent to certain Middle Eastern countries, and many more information was just omitted.

Information that just gets omitted....

Stay tuned for Part 3!

(Meanwhile, you can read what my esteemed cohort wrote about the Philippines last year: Islamic terrorism problem in Philippines by Nora, July 11, 2007.)