Report: Frankreich warnte CIA von Plot 9-11

Frankreichs Auslandsnachrichtenservice erfuhr schon in Januar 2001, daß Al-Qaida einen überfallenden Plot, vorbereitete US wahrscheinlich mit einzubeziehen das Flugzeug, sagten ehemalige Intelligenzbeamte Montag, einen Report bestätigend, der auch den CIA sagte, empfing die Warnung.

Le Mondezeitung sagte, daß sie 328 Seiten der eingestuften Dokumente im beladenen Terrornetz des Osama Sortierfaches, die durch den französischen Spionservice aufgestellt wurden, das DGSE, zwischen Juli 2000 und Oktober 2001 erhalten hatte. Die Dokumente schlossen einen Jan. ein. 5, 2001, intelligence report warning that al-Qaida was at work on a hijacking plot.

Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, the former chief of staff for the agency’s director at the time, said he remembered the note and that it mentioned only the vague outlines of a hijacking plot nothing that foreshadowed the scale of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

“It wasn’t about a specific airline or a specific day, it was not a precise plot,” Lorenzi told The Associated Press. “It was a note that said, ‘They are preparing a plot to hijack an airplane, and they have cited several companies.’”

The Sept. 11 commission’s report on the four hijacked flights has detailed repeated warnings about al-Qaida and its desire to attack airlines in the months before Sept. 11, 2001.

In a version declassified last September, the report shows that the Federal Aviation Administration’s intelligence unit received “nearly 200 pieces of threat-related information daily from U.S. intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI, CIA, and State Department.”

The French warning, part of which was published in Le Monde, detailed initial rumblings about the plot.

In early 2000 in Kabul, Afghanistan, bin Laden met with Taliban leaders and members of armed groups from Chechnya and discussed the possibility of hijacking a plane that would take off from Frankfurt, Germany, the note said, citing Uzbek intelligence.

The note listed potential targets: American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines, United Airlines, Air France and Lufthansa. The list also included a mention of “US Aero,” but it was unclear exactly what that referred to.

Two of the airlines, United and American, were targeted months later on Sept. 11.

Lorenzi said details of the threat would certainly have been passed along to the CIA, though he was unable to specifically confirm that they had been.

“That’s the kind of information concerning a friendly country that we communicate,” he said. “If you don’t do it, it’s an error.”

He also stressed that officials could not say whether the plot they outlined in January 2001 was an early warning about the attacks to come in September.

At the time, Lorenzi said, officials had heard echoes only about a standard hijacking they had no idea al-Qaida planned to slam planes into buildings, let alone the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Uzbek officials apparently tipped off the French about the plot. Alain Chouet, a former top anti-terrorism official within the DGSE, said that an Afghan warlord from the Uzbek community who was fighting the Taliban at the time had sent men to infiltrate al-Qaida camps and their information was passed down the chain to Western intelligence officials.

Confirming information in Le Monde, Chouet said such intelligence was likely checked out before it was put into a note. He also said that to the best of his knowledge, “all identified threats, even indirect and minimal ones, were passed in both directions” between the CIA and the CGSE.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5487061,00.html

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