American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us by Steven Emerson Page A

many kinds of networks—from the highly ordered, centralized ones with intelligence at the apex, to highly decentralized ones with the intelligence spread to the periphery. The terror networks are highly decentralized. Any two points can be connected or disconnected fairly easily. Though Osama bin Laden has come to symbolize the source and puppet-master of it all, he is only one among many players. His al Qaeda network has come to serve as something of an umbrella organization, but it would be a mistake to think of it like a corporate holding company. Almost any operator can initiate an act of terror, and find support for it among old and new associates.
    Finally, the networks are interconnected in many overlapping ways, which means that a few key nodes can lead experts to many points of potential threat. Consider the connections of one man who bridges the first World Trade Center bombing, and the Kahane assassination, and the Connecticut shooting ranges, and bin Laden himself. This is the story of Ali Mohammed, Osama bin Laden’s special-operations man within the United States.
    Ali Mohammed was an officer within the United States Army’s Special Forces based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. At the same time, he was arranging for security for meetings between such individuals as Osama bin Laden and Hizballah military chief Imad Mughniyeh in Sudan and coordinating activities with other bin Laden operatives within the United States.
    When FBI agents had raided the New Jersey home of El-Sayeed Nosair after his arrest in the shooting of Rabbi Meir Kahane, among the many items found in Nosair’s possession were sensitive military documents from Fort Bragg. The documents, some of which were classified Secret, contained the locations of U.S. Special Operations Forces exercises and units in the Middle East, military training schedules, U.S. intelligence estimates of Soviet forces in Afghanistan, a topographical map of Fort Bragg, U.S. Central Command data, and intelligence estimates of Soviet force projection in Afghanistan. Appended throughout the documents were Arabic markings and notations believed to be by Ali Mohammed. Some documents were marked “Top Secret for Training—otherwise unclassified.” Other documents were marked “sensitive.”
    Ali Mohammed was an Egyptian-born Islamic fundamentalist who had come to live in the United States in 1985. He had been in the United States earlier that decade as well, having graduated as a captain from a Special Forces Officers School at Fort Bragg in 1981 in a program for visiting military officials from foreign countries. He joined the U.S. military in 1986 and received a security clearance for level “Secret.” He was assigned as a sergeant with the U.S. Army Special Operations at Fort Bragg. He also served unofficially as an assistant instructor at the JFK Special Operations Warfare School; as such he participated in teaching a class on the Middle East and Islamic fundamentalist perceptions of the United States.
    Ali Mohammed became active in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and soon connected with Islamic militants in New Jersey who had been training and supporting the jihad. Mohammed was introduced to El-Sayeed Nosair by Khalid Ibrahim, an Egyptian-born Islamic fundamentalist in New Jersey. Ibrahim had become active in the Office of Services for the Mujahideen, known as Alkhifa, the group that recruited volunteers and funds for the jihad in Afghanistan. Alkhifa, headquartered in Peshawar, Pakistan, maintained scores of offices worldwide, including three dozen in the United States; its primary American offices were located in Brooklyn, Jersey City, and Tucson, Arizona. According to the U.S. government’s indictment against Osama bin Laden and others for their role in the bombing of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, the Office of Services for Alkhifa was transformed into the terrorist organization of Osama bin Laden, known as al