There has been a bit of confusion about the allegations that Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, ordered Saeed Sheikh to send $100,000 to Mohammed Atta.
Somehow, many bloggers and posters have confused the dates of these alleged transactions and the sources of the allegations. For some reason many people have begun to write that the wire transfer occurred just before the 9/11 attacks, in August 2001 -- an allegation that doesn't make sense if we also believe that Mohammed Atta tried to return excess funds to his backers around the same time.
The original reporting, however, claimed that Saeed Sheikh wired Mohammed Atta
$100,000 in the summer of 2000, not the summer of 2001. This makes much more sense, if the allegation is that Atta used funds from Saeed Sheikh to organize and carry out the 9/11 attacks.
Paul Thompson's timeline establishes
the date of the transfers as the summer of 2000. The source of the allegation was that the phone records from the phone company used by Sheikh, including a record of Sheikh's repeated phone calls to Ahmad around the same time Sheikh wired money to Atta:
In 2002, French author Bernard-Henri Levy is presented evidence by government officials in New Delhi, India, that Saeed Sheikh makes repeated calls to ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed during the summer of 2000. Later,
Levy gets unofficial confirmation from sources in Washington regarding these calls that the information he was given in India is correct. He notes that someone in the United Arab Emirates using a variety of aliases sends Mohamed Atta slightly over $100,000 between June and September of this year (see June 29, 2000-September 18, 2000 and (July-August 2000)), and the timing of these phone calls and the money transfers may have been the source of news reports that Mahmood Ahmed ordered Saeed Sheikh to send $100,000 to Mohamed Atta (see October 7, 2001). However, he also notes that there is evidence of Sheikh sending Atta $100,000 in August 2001 (see Early August 2001), so the reports could refer to that, or both $100,000 transfers could involve Mahmood Ahmed, Saeed Sheikh, and Mohamed Atta.
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Also, there is some confusion about sources -- namely that the only source was the Times of India. This is not correct. The Times of India was the first source, but French author Bernard-Henri Levy, CNN, Asia Times and the Wall St. Journal followed up on the story and reported that American officials (sometimes more specifically described as the FBI) had confirmed the the allegations that Sheikh wired the money at the request of Gen. Ahmad. So, the "story" is not simply that the Times of India alleged an Ahmad-Sheikh-Atta connection, but that the US government had confirmed the Indian allegations. The Wall St. Journal also reported shortly after 9/11, that Ahmad had been fired because of his ties to Sheikh.
The Indian newspaper Excelsior also explained the aftermath of the Indian-FBI collaboration -- namely, that the FBI did not believe the Indian allegations until, using Indian supplied electronic data, they confirmed for themselves the Ahmad-Sheikh-Atta connection:
http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/01oct18/news.htmThe FBI investigators are reported to have conceded that India’s inputs proved to be "vital". A highly-placed intelligence source told EXCELSIOR that the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) provided the critical lead, which was vigorously pursued by the FBI investigators in Pakistan for more than 10 days until the cat was out of the bag.
The critical lead, the source elaborated, was the cellphone number of Omar Sheikh. In the initial stages, America’s intelligence establishment was found having certain reservations on India’s inputs. The scenario changed after the RAW made available Omar Sheikh’s cellphone number-0300 94587772.
The FBI’s examination of the hard disk of the cellphone company Omar Sheikh had subscribed to led to the discovery of the "link" between him and the deposed chief of the Pakistani ISI, Gen. Mehmood Ahmed. And as the FBI investigators delved deep, sensational information surfaced with regard to the transfer of 100,000 dollars to Mohammed Atta, one of the Kamikaze pilots who flew his Boeing into the World Trade Centre. Gen. Mehmood Ahmed, the FBI investigators found, fully knew about the transfer of money to Atta.
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Later, the Pittsburg Tribune Review reported leaks from the Pakistani government to the effect that Sheikh was not only an ISI asset, but a direct CIA asset:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_20141.htmlPOWERED BY THE CIA?
But there is also a tragedy of disbelief. There are many in Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA. The theory is that with such intense pressure to locate bin Laden, Saeed Sheikh was bought and paid for. True or not, it would be logical for the CIA to recruit an intelligent, young political criminal with contacts in both India and Pakistan. That he was uncontrollable may not have been a factor — until too late!
Another wake-up call for those for whom the war is far, far away: Saeed Sheikh has long had close contacts with the "Tanseem ul-uqra" (the Group of the Impoverished), which claims close ties with the Muslims of the Americas — a U.S. tax-exempt group claiming about 3,000 members in Red House, Va.; the Baladullah Estate in Fresno, Calif.; and various groups in Colorado, New York State and the Caribbean.
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The confusion about the date of the transfers seems to have arisen because Levy also reported a second transfer in the summer of 2001. But the better sourced allegation was that the transfers took place a year earlier.
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