Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - The question of al-Faruq and his escape

host · 12-31-2005, 04:27 AM

Our government did not even advise Indonesia of the following
"development"?

Quote:

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020923/story.html
Confessions of an al-Qaeda Terrorist
American interrogators finally got to Omar al-Faruq, who detailed plans to launch a new terror spree in Southeast Asia. A TIME exclusive

By Romesh Ratnesar

Posted Sunday, Sept. 15, 2002; 2:31 p.m. EST

..........If she is to be believed, Mira, like the rest of the world, is only beginning to discover the truth about her husband. On June 5 government agents arrested al-Faruq at a mosque in nearby Bogor. Three days later, Indonesian authorities deported al-Faruq to the U.S.-held air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, where CIA investigators have been interrogating suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist organization. But al-Faruq was no ordinary operative.

According to a secret CIA document and regional intelligence reports obtained by TIME, U.S. officials already had reason to believe al-Faruq was one of bin Laden's top representatives in Southeast Asia, responsible for coordinating the activities of the region's disparate Islamic militant groups and employing their forces to conduct terror attacks against the U.S. and its allies. According to one regional intelligence memo, the CIA had been told of al-Faruq's role by Abu Zubaydah, the highest ranking al-Qaeda official in U.S. custody and a valuable, if at times manipulative, source of intelligence on the terror network and its plans. Initially, al-Faruq was not as cooperative. Though al-Faruq was subjected to three months of psychological interrogation tactics — a U.S. counterterrorism official says they included isolation and sleep deprivation — he stayed virtually silent.

But early last week al-Faruq finally broke down. On Sept. 9, according to a secret CIA summary of the interview, al-Faruq confessed that he was, in fact, al-Qaeda's senior representative in Southeast Asia. Then came an even more shocking confession: according to the CIA document, al-Faruq said two senior al-Qaeda officials, Abu Zubaydah and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, had ordered him to "plan large-scale attacks against U.S. interests in Indonesia, Malaysia, (the) Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Cambodia. In particular," the document continues, "(al-)Faruq prepared a plan to conduct simultaneous car/truck bomb attacks against U.S. embassies in the region to take place on or near" the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Al-Faruq said that, despite his arrest, backup operatives were in place to "assume responsibilities to carry out operations as planned." If successfully executed, such a coordinated assault could produce thousands of casualties. Fearing an attack could come at any moment, al-Faruq's interrogators relayed his revelations to the CIA's Counterterrorism Center in Langley, Va. Al-Faruq's story tracked with several recent intelligence reports from Southeast Asia about an increase in suspicious activities near American embassies. A day later the U.S. issued its code-orange terror alert. Al-Faruq's threatened attacks never occurred. ..............

Now, three years later, and four months after Farouk's miraculous escape, we "learn" the following:

Quote:

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/11/02/...ber_2_guys.php
Whoops, I Think We Lost One Of The Number 2 Guys!

The screen flashes 'War On Terror'. A banner soon follows, 'Top Al Qaeda Operative Escapes From Prison.' That's how the story started today on Studio B with Shepard Smith. Smith said, "He's considered one of Osama Bin Laden's top lieutenants. One of the most feared terrorists in all of Southeast Asia, and he got out."

Scared yet? Wait, it gets better.

My transcript (paraphrased but pretty much verbatim):

Shepard Smith: The U.S. says he was one of four suspects who escaped from an Afghan military prison in July. (Comment: What? In July?) The officials just confirmed that he's gone. Security now ramped up across Afghanistan as the war on terror rages in Iraq. (Comment: What? It's ramped up now for an escape that happened in July?)

Smith spoke with Bret Baier at the Pentagon.

Bret Baier: Four months later we now know that an Al Qaeda big wig escaped U.S. custody. We reported back in July that four Al Qaeda suspects escaped the detention facility at Bagram Airbase. The search continued right after that escape. (Comment: Who wrote that line? The Pentagon?) U.S. officials are now saying, now confirming ,that a man named Omar al Faruq was one of the four in July. The military only released Faruq's alias as they were searching for the four escapees around Bagram.

Now Faruq is said to be one of Osama Bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia, as you mentioned. He was captured by Indonesian authorities in 2002, was said to be planning a number of attacks against U.S. and western interests. The Indonesians then turned him over to the U.S. and he ended up at the Bagram Airbase detention facility, escaped in July.

His name surfaced last night at Fort Bliss, Texas, in the court martial of an army sergeant charged with mistreatment of detainees. The prosecution asked to have him, Faruq, as a witness. The defense said he was no longer in detention. (Comment: And this is how we found out? Why the secrecy?)

Also, about two weeks ago, now we know, Al Arabiya, the Arabic Television Network, released a video. They said that these four men on the video were said to have escaped from the detention facility at Bagram. One of the four believed to have been Faruq.

The U.S. officials now say they believe the four men are still in Afghanistan or Pakistan somewhere and still very dangerous........

Quote:

http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=7079
Nov 06 21:32
Moslem Solidarity arns People of New Scenario in Al-Farouk Escape

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian Moslems were warned here Sunday over a possible new scenario aimed at prolonging terrorist plans in the country now that jailed terrorist Umar Al-Farouk has escaped from Baghram prison in Afghanistan.

"We must watch out because it is possible that Al-Farouk`s escape was a new international scenario to maintain terrorism plans in Indonesia," Ahmad Sumargono, chairman of the Indonesian Moslem Solidarity Movement (GPMI), said here on Sunday.

He said the scenario could be made by people at home or abroad who were trying to prevent terrorism in Indonesia from fading away, or trying to create a bad image of Islam.

"It seems they are trying to create a cooperation network and a common target," he said, adding that the manhunt for suspects in the Bali bombing II was still continued though the suicide bombers were killed.

It is therefore reasonable to have doubts why Al-Farouk who was arrested in Bogor, West Java, in 2002, and jailed in a maximum-security prison could escape, he said.

"We are suspicious that he was intentionally released and killed, or there had been another scenario. Or Al-Farouk had been part of their intelligence network," he said............

Quote:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9938331/site/newsweek/
Qaeda Prison Break
Four Arab captives, including a top terror operative, manage to slip through three rings of security.

By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek

Nov. 14, 2005 issue - Bagram airbase is home to one of the most heavily fortified military prisons in the world. Located in the shadow of the Hindu Kush about 30 miles north of Kabul, the facility holds hundreds of alleged jihadists at the center of three tight rings of security, surrounded by U.S. and Afghan troops. To enter and leave Bagram one has to pass through a labyrinth of concrete and dirt-filled-wire barriers that are overlooked by two-story-high observation posts. The prisoners, dressed in orange jumpsuits, are kept in wire cages in the middle of an old warehouse, somewhat like Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs." The warehouse in turn is ringed by razor wire and finally the fences and guard posts of the airbase itself.

Yet in the early morning hours of July 11, 2005, U.S. officials say, four of these brightly attired men somehow penetrated each of the three security cordons and slipped through a Soviet-era minefield just outside the base, one purposely left active. Then the escapees disappeared into the darkness, managing even to elude local Tajik villagers who are generally hostile to foreign fighters. It was, almost everyone agreed, an astonishing feat. "If this really happened as reported, it makes the Great Escape of World War II look like an Outward Bound exercise," said one U.S. defense analyst familiar with detainee operations who would speak only if he were not named.

On wanted posters that were displayed around Bagram at the time, the escapees were identified vaguely as foreigners who had come to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan—a Kuwaiti, a Syrian, a Libyan and a Saudi. But last week Pentagon officials were forced to admit that one of the fugitives was not who they said he was. Originally identified as one Mahmoud Ahmad Mohammed of Kuwait, he was actually Omar al-Faruq, a well-known Qaeda leader in Southeast Asia who had been handed over to the Americans by Indonesian authorities in 2002. Faruq's true identity emerged after a defense lawyer at the Texas trial of a U.S. soldier accused of brutality at Bagram called Faruq as a witness—only to be told by the U.S. Army he was no longer there.

What really happened at Bagram last July? No one knows, or at least those who know aren't saying. But coming at a time when America's detention policies in the global war on terror are under fire, Faruq's disappearance raises new questions about whether a system with so little transparency, accountability and oversight can continue. Bagram is an open book compared with those secret facilities around the world that are run by the CIA but not publicly acknowledged. Anywhere from two dozen to 100 prisoners are held at these sites with no prospect of release, according to official U.S. accounts and Human Rights Watch. Even at the agency, "senior people are saying we've got to have an endgame to this," says one career CIA official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This isn't sustainable."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told NEWSWEEK that he was not authorized to provide any details about the escape. "Clearly it wasn't the U.S. military's finest hour," Whitman said. But he added: "This is a field facility. It isn't Rikers [Island]. This is not the first time that prisoners have escaped from military facilities in Afghanistan as well as Iraq." But few Afghans seem to believe an escape from Bagram is possible, and that has given rise to rumors about the July 11 breakout. According to one fugitive Taliban commander interviewed by a NEWSWEEK reporter last week, the four men were actually exchanged in secret for captured U.S. special-operations troops. Whitman called that account "absolutely absurd and completely untrue."..........

My 2006 New Year's resolution is to put even more effort into questioning anything and everything that the U.S. government reveals, and to look into what they aren't disclosing that we have a right to know about.

How about you?

*Mod edit: Brett Wilkes question moved here: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=99412*