| Submit your comments on this article |
| Great White North |
| Jdey was sought as an al-Qaeda pilot |
| 2006-04-02 |
| A Montreal resident was picked by al-Qaeda plotters to be a pilot in a second wave of suicide hijackings to follow the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because he was a Canadian citizen, a deposition filed at the U.S. trial of terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui alleges. Abderraouf Jdey, a Montrealer of Tunisian origin who is now a fugitive, obtained his Canadian citizenship in 1995. He was selected along with Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen, because they had passports from Western countries, since al-Qaeda planners expected tighter security after Sept. 11, the court document says. “Al Qaeda wanted the second wave operatives to carry French, Canadian, Malaysian, or Indonesian passports instead of Middle Eastern passports,” the document says. The 58-page document is the first detailed account of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 plot, told U.S. interrogators after his capture in 2003. The document says that Mr. Mohammed used only operatives from the Middle East for the first wave of attacks so as not to draw attention to the possibility of later hijacks by people using passports from other countries. The deposition was filed at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., for the death-penalty trial of Mr. Moussaoui. Mr. Jdey, whose name is also transliterated as al-Jiddi, is a shadowy figure who gained notoriety after the Federal Bureau of Investigation identified him as a terror suspect in 2002. A $5-million (U.S.) reward was offered for his capture. The U.S. commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks first identified Mr. Jdey as a candidate for the 9/11 strikes or “for a later attack,” but did not elaborate. The deposition explains for the first time that Mr. Jdey was picked because he had obtained Canadian citizenship, citing Mr. Mohammed, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his top military lieutenant until 2001, Mohammad Atef, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri. “Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Hafs and bin Laden agreed that finding non-Arab passport holders was a priority because it would be difficult for Middle Eastern passport holders to operate in the U.S. after 9/11,” the document says. It also gives specifics about the allegations against Mr. Jdey, who is identified by one of his pseudonyms, Faruq Al-Tunisi: Mr. Jdey and Mr. Moussaoui were among three candidates to be pilots in the second wave of hijackings, which “entailed the same steps as the Sept. 11 hijackers: getting flight lessons, purchasing knives, etc.” (Contradicting the deposition, which portrays him as an unreliable, problematic operative, Mr. Moussaoui claimed in court this week that he was supposed to hijack a plane on Sept. 11 and crash it into the White House.) The second wave's targets were to be in the western United States, such as an unidentified bridge in San Francisco, but the Sears Tower in Chicago was also mentioned. “While the 9/11 operation evolved into an East Coast attack, bin Laden himself advised that a second wave attack should focus on the West, believing that security might be more lax there.” A few months before Sept. 11, Mr. Jdey withdrew from the plot. “Faruq Al-Tunisi contacted Sheikh Mohammed from Canada during the summer of 2001 to back out,” the filing says with no further explanation. In any event, the second wave never took place. “Sheikh Mohammed had no idea that the damage of the first attack would be as catastrophic as it was, and he did not plan on the U.S. responding to the attacks as fiercely as they did, which led to the next phase being postponed,” the deposition says. While the document does not elaborate on how the second wave attackers would have trained, it offers fresh details on the preparation of the Sept. 11 operatives. It says, for example, that the “muscle hijackers,” who were to take over the planes, butchered sheep and a camel with Swiss knives “to prepare them for using their knives during the hijackings.” They were not immediately told of their targets and were also taught how to blow up buildings, trains and trucks “to muddy somewhat the real purpose of their training in case they were caught while in transit to the U.S.” Mr. Jdey first came to the FBI's attention after he was among five men whose wills and martyrdom videotapes were found in the Kabul home of Mr. Atef, who was killed during the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan in late 2001. Mr. Jdey came to Canada as an independent immigrant, on a visa issued in Rabat, Morocco. He landed at Montreal's Mirabel International Airport in April of 1991. According to the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program, Mr. Jdey studied biology while in Montreal. Mr. Jdey lived in a modest apartment building in Montreal's east-end Rosemont district and is believed to have left Canada in November of 2001. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Al Qaeda wanted the second wave operatives to carry French, Canadian, Malaysian, or Indonesian passports instead of Middle Eastern passports But don't let's profile unfairly. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-04-02 12:14 |