 The FBI is trying to determine if a suspect in the deadly subway bombings in London two weeks ago is the same al-Qaida emissary who visited and lived in Seattle in 1999 and 2000 during a trip to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.
| Right after they solve the Anthrax case, should have someone free around 2015. |
British police have identified Haroon Rashid Aswat as a possible source of logistical, financial and technical support to the four bombers, according to media reports. The question for federal agents in Seattle is whether the man named by Scotland Yard is the same man as Aswat Haroon Rashid who, along with James Ujaama of Seattle, Semi Osman of Tacoma and al-Qaida colleague Oussama Abdullah Kassir set up the camp in Bly in south-central Oregon. "Is it the same guy or is it someone else?" asked a federal criminal justice source. "We are going back over a lot of old ground." Agents have questioned Ujaama and others who prayed at the now defunct Dar-us-Salaam mosque in Seattle's Central District, which provided Rashid shelter for a short period during his mission to the Northwest.
[Note: the FBI's role this case has been clarified since this article was originally published.]
But the agents don't expect much new information to emerge since all the people identified by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in connection with Rashid already have been thoroughly interviewed. "There's probably not going to be anything earthshaking," the source said. Agents have their doubts the man who came to the Northwest and the man London authorities are looking for are the same. For one thing, federal agents believe the man who visited here is dead, several sources said. Stories about his death vary, but include Rashid being killed in Afghanistan, Sudan or by a cruise missile strike ordered by the CIA against a vehicle traveling in a Yemeni desert.
| Unless you can produce a body, assume he's alive. Helf of the terrorist bigs have been reported dead two, three times. |
Ujaama worked with the two al-Qaida emissaries who were reputedly sent to the Northwest from Europe by London cleric Abu Hamza to set up the training camp. Abu Hamza was the spiritual leader at London's Finsbury Park Mosque frequented by people such as convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid. The U.S. intelligence community believes Abu Hamza is a leading al-Qaida recruiter in Europe.
| Could have asked us, we'd have told them that. |
A federal grand jury in the United States has indicted him, and British authorities are holding him as Abu Hamza awaits the outcome of extradition proceedings.
Ahmed Ressam, who drove off a ferry from Canada into Port Angeles in 1999 in a rental car filled with explosives that authorities said he intended to use against travelers at Los Angeles International Airport, will be sentenced in Seattle next week. The severity of Ressam's sentence will depend largely on whether he agrees to testify against Abu Hamza. Semi Osman, a former prayer leader at the Dar-us-Salaam Mosque at 23rd Avenue and East Union Street, was behind the wheel of a car carrying the two al-Qaida members near Bly in December 1999 when a police officer pulled the vehicle over because a brake light was out. The suspicious officer wrote down the names of everyone in the vehicle as well as numbers on Kassir's and Rashid's passports.
| Now that's a smart cop... |
It was Osman who procured the property in Bly for the jihad training camp, according to court records. Osman received a lighter sentence in return for his future testimony against Abu Hamza. Osman was found guilty in 2003 of possession of an illegal pistol. He is serving a sentence on an unrelated conviction at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
Ujaama, under the terms of an April 2003 plea agreement, also must cooperate with the Department of Justice until 2013 in terrorism cases, including the prosecution of Abu Hamza. The agreement prohibits him from talking about his own or others' involvement in criminal or terrorist activities to anyone other than officials or in court. In return, terrorism-related charges against Ujaama were dropped in favor of a single count of providing services, software and other technology to the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. Ujaama has served his sentence and is living in Seattle. He has refused to comment this week to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
| Put together a photo line-up including a picture of Haroon Rashid Aswat, show it to both of them seperately, and see if they ID the same guy. Or didn't they teach that in FBI school? |
Many members of Dar-us-Salaam went to the nearby successor mosque called Taqwa on East Union Street. It is unclear if that mosque is still open, however. No one associated with it could be reached for comment yesterday, and a telephone number for Taqwa listed on two Muslim Web sites has been disconnected.
| Disbanded, or gone underground? |
Rashid and Kassir arrived in New York City on Nov. 26, 1999, on an Air India flight, then went to Bly via Seattle, according to the indictment against Ujaama. Ujaama's indictment lists three unidentified co-conspirators who were not charged. Numerous federal criminal justice sources have told the P-I that the co-conspirators are Rashid, Kassir and Abu Hamza. The indictment says the men conspired "to provide training in the United States of America to persons desiring to engage in violent jihad so that such persons would be bona fide candidates for further violent jihad training in training camps operated by al-Qaida abroad, including in Afghanistan." The purpose: "to promote violent jihad activities around the world." |