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Site Map THE ISRAELI ART STUDENTS AND MOVERS STORY -- Part 2 |
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Small teams of Mossad agents found with eavesdropping equipment are nothing new to European or American law enforcement. In February 1998, five Israelis, three men and two women, were arrested in an apartment in the suburbs of Berne, Switzerland. The Israeli team managed to convince the police that they did not break and enter into the apartment but were there legally. The apartment was the residence of an Islamic activist. Four of the Israelis, two men and two women, were released. However, the fifth Israeli was later discovered with sophisticated surveillance equipment and a number of false passports. He was arrested, detained, and held for 65 days until Israel paid 3 million Swiss francs for his release with a promise he would return from Israel to stand trial. In July 2000, Isaac Bental, the cover name under which the Mossad allowed the Swiss to prosecute their agent, stood trial for espionage before the Swiss Federal Court. It was the first time a Mossad agent had gone on trial outside Israel.[43] In December 1998, Cypriot police arrested two Israeli agents, Uri Argov and Yisrael Damari, for the illegal possession of communications intercept equipment and espionage. In March 1998, three Mossad agents aborted a wiretapping operation in London after they were tipped off to the police. The Mossad had operated illegally in London since 1987. That year, a furious Margaret Thatcher ordered Israel to close its Palace Green, Kensington Mossad station after its role in the assassination of a Palestinian cartoonist on a South Kensington street was revealed.[44] In 1999, Shalom Shaphyr, an Israeli national having residences in Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon was arrested by the FBI in Alexandria, Virginia for trying to buy computer intercept equipment from undercover FBI and Customs Service agents. Shaphyr was accused of trying to illegally export the equipment to Vietnam. Shaphyr possessed a business visa that permitted him to enter and leave the United States at will.[45]
On May 31, 2005, it was announced in
Israel that Israeli police and Interpol discovered a huge computer
espionage ring involving a number of former Israeli intelligence officers
and Israeli companies, including AMDOCS. Israeli police questioned AMDOCS
computer security manager Eitan Shiron in the investigation that
surrounded the use by over a dozen Israeli companies of a sophisticated
hacking software program, called a Trojan horse, which bypassed the
security controls on targeted computer systems.[46]
The Israeli investigation also focused on four major Israeli
telecommunications companies – Cellcom, Israel’s largest mobile phone
company; two subsidiaries of the largest telecommunications company Bezeq
Israel Telecom; mobile phone company Pelephone; and satellite television
company Yes.[47]
Scotland Yard also participated in the take down of the Israeli espionage
ring, arresting dual Israeli-German citizen Michael Haephrati and his wife
Ruth Brier-Haephrati in London on an Israeli extradition warrant. The
Israeli couple was charged
with”unauthorized modification of the contents of a computer” between
December 12, 2004 and February 28, 2005.” Police said they wrote the
Trojan horse computer program and provided it to a middleman. The Trojan
horse in question was believed to be a derivative of the PROMIS software
program illegally procured from Inslaw, Inc. in Washington, DC in the
early 1980s and re-engineered by a number of intelligence agencies,
including Israel’s, to perform computer espionage. Oddly, The Scotsman
newspaper reported that Haephrati was questioned about a “separate matter”
by detectives with Britain’s National Hi-Tech Crime unit on May 25, before
his arrest on the Israeli warrant. The Haphraetis were remanded in the Bow
Street Magistrates Court in London.[48]
Yet another
possible Israeli intelligence link to electronic eavesdropping on the U.S.
government was unearthed in the questionable awarding by the U.S. Congress
of a wireless contract to a company owned by Israel. In 2000, LGC
Wireless, a San Jose, California-based firm was considered in the lead to
provide wireless connectivity for the U.S. House of Representatives. A
year earlier, the House Administration Committee, then headed by
Republican Representative Bill Thomas of California, granted LGC authority
to conduct a design and securityn survey of the Capitol. In addition, the
FBI and NSA reviewed LGC’s system design to ensure that foreign
intelligence agencies could not penetrate the House’s wireless network. By
December 2000, LGC had cleared its plans with the Capitol Architect, the
House Information Resource Office, and the House Administration Committee.
However, soon a new Israeli co,pany named Foxcom Wireless, which changed
its name to MobileAccess, began making an end run to secure the Capitol
wireless contract. The new chairman of the House Administration Committee,
Republican Representative Bob Ney of Ohio, clearly favored MobileAccess
over LGC and in 2002, the Israeli company received the House wireless
contract. Ney had a close political and financial relationship with GOP
lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an extreme pro-Israeli political insider, who came
under Justice Department investigation for questionable ties to Ney and
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. It was later revealed by The
Washington Post that in 2001 MobileAccess donated $50,000 to the
Capital Athletic Foundation, which was run by Abramoff. In 2004,
MobileAccess paid $240,000 in lobbying fess to Greenberg Traurig,
Abramoff’s former firm. The ranking member on the House Administration
Committee, Democratic Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, said he was
not kept fully informed of the wireless contract by either Thomas or Ney.
LGC also cried foul when, in 2004, the U.S. Senate awarded MobileAccess a
$3.9 million contract to install a wireless network for the Senate.[49]
As with the questions surrounding Information Spectrum Inc. abruptly
replacing Larimore Associates as the Jersey City Police Department
computer system contractor, similar complaints were aired by LGC. Ian
Sugarboard, LGC’s CEO told The Hill newspaper, “. . . it appeared
that lobbyists had exerted undue influence on the deal.” In addition, the
House Administration Committee did not specify what security criteria
MobileAccess had to meet. The FBI and NSA had previously approved LGC’s
security countermeasures.[50]
Abramoff’s
strong connection to Israel and his influence in the Bush administration
serve as yet another nexus between Israel, the Bush administration, and
officials closely connected with Saudi Arabia. Top GOP adviser and
Abramoff friend Grover Norquist, who was Abramoff’s campaign manager when
he ran for President of the College Republicans (a post also once held by
Karl Rove), also maintained close links to a number of Saudis, some of
whom were implicated in funding terrorism. Norquist was a cofounder of
the Islamic Institute, co-located in Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform
offices in Washington, DC. Norquist was a key player in the Bush 2000
outreach for Muslim and Arab voters. Sami al Arian, a University of South
Florida professor, was an ardent supporter of Bush’s Florida campaign to
woo Muslim and Arab voters and his support likely helped tip the close
election to Bush. The Islamic Institute was founded in 1999 with start up
money from Kuwait; Qatar; other Arab countries; the founder of the
American Muslim Council, Abdurahman Muhammad Al Amoudi; and two Islamic
non-profits, the Safa Trust and the International Institute of Islamic
Thought (IIIT). In 2002, as part of
Operation Greenquest, the FBI raided Safa and IIIT for their role
in financing international terrorism. Another one of Al Amoudi’s groups,
the International Relief Organization, was suspected of laundering Saudi
money to terrorist groups. Although Arian and Al Amoudi were later charged
by the federal government with supporting terrorist groups, they
maintained close ties to the Bush campaign. Just a few months before the
911 attacks, Arian attended a June 2001 White house briefing with Karl
Rove. Suhail Khan, the White House point man for arranging access to Bush
by prominent Muslim-Americans and a former director of the Islamic
Institute, was the son of the late imam of the Santa Clara, California
mosque. The mosque had once hosted Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri, the second in
command of Al Qaeda. Norquist and his friends were clearly part of a
Saudi- and Wahhabi-funded political machine that sought to marginalize
moderate Muslims in the United States. Agha Jafri, a Sh’ia leader in New
York, said there was in the United States a Saudi “mafia” that was “intent
on crushing moderate Sufi and Shiite Muslims in the United States.”[51]
In addition, Norquist’s friend Al Amoudi was also discovered to have links
to the 911 hijackers. German police files indicated that Al Amoudi met in
the fall of 2000 Mohammed Belfas, an Islamic leader in Hamburg who once
shared an apartment with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a kingpin behind the 911
attacks. One of Belfas’s colleagues, Agus Budiman, had accompanied Belfas
on a scouting mission to Washington, DC in late 2000. Budiman pleaded
guilty to helping Belfas obtain a phony identification card using a
non-existent address in Arlington, Virginia. German police obtained a
photograph from Belfas’s Hamburg apartment showing a meeting between him,
Budiman, and Al Amoudi in Al Amoudi’s Arlington, Virginia office.
[52]
Texas was not the only case where the Israelis were found to be in the same location as the Saudi hijacker cells. According to the DEA Report, another Israeli team operating out of Hollywood, Florida, led by team leader Hanan Serfaty lived at 4220 Sheridan St., #303, Hollywood, Florida 33021 (Emerald Greens Apartments) while the Saudi hijackers Khalid Al Midhar, Abdulaziz al Omari, Walid Al Shehri, and UAE national Marwan al Shehhi, operated from a mail drop at Mailbox Rentals, 3389 Sheridan St. #256, Hollywood, Florida 33021-3608. Another Serfaty residence at 701 S. 21st Ave., Hollywood was located near the homes of Atta and Al Shehhi, including a residence on Jackson Street, just a few blocks away, and the Bimini Motel Apartments, Apartment 8, at 1600 North Ocean Drive. On September 7, just days before their terrorist attack, Atta and Al Shehhi spent several hours at Shuckums Oyster Bar and Grill at 1814 Harrison St., just a few blocks away from Serfaty’s 21st Ave. residence. A Miami-based Israeli unit, led by Legum Yochai, operated from 13753 SW 90th Ave., Miami while hijacker Al Shehri lived nearby at Horizons Apartments, 8025 SW 107th Ave. During the time the Israelis and Arabs were living in Hollywood, Atta and his team were attending flight training and inquiring about crop dusting planes in southern Florida. According to a source with high-level contacts within the Mossad, Israeli agents based in southern Florida were able to successfully penetrate the Arab cells in southern Florida and informed their Tel Aviv headquarters that an attack on the east coast of the United States was being planned and that it involved commercial aircraft. Although it is not known if these agents were art students, they were Yemeni and Egyptian-born Jews who spoke fluent Arabic and were trained at a secret base in Israel’s Negev Desert. Although Mossad chief Efraim Halevy warned CIA Director George Tenet of an “imminent attack,” the warning contained no details about the terrorists training on commercial aircraft. Tenet was said to have dismissed the warning because it was not specific. The Mossad units reportedly left the United States after the September 11 attack on El Al flights and were listed on sky marshal manifests as El Al employees. It is likely that some of the Mossad warnings about hijackings in the United States did reach some people. Officials at Odigo, an instant-messaging company with offices in New York and Herzliya (where the headquarters of Mossad is located) admitted that two of its employees said they received e-mail warning of the attack two hours before the planes careened into the twin towers. Alex Diamandis, Odigo’s vice president for sales and marketing, confirmed that Odigo employees in New York and Israel received a warning two hours before the attack. The warning appeared to be anonymous but Odigo programmers recorded the Internet protocol address of the message’s sender. Odigo also notified Mossad and the FBI but the FBI failed to take action and notify occupants of the World Trade Center.[53] By September 3, 2001, Zim-American Israeli Shipping Company, completed its move from the World Trade Center to Norfolk, Virginia after suddenly canceling its lease in April 2001 and forfeiting a $50,000 lease cancellation penalty. World Trade Center and New York-New Jersey Port Authority Police had previously determined that Zim’s World Trade Center office was an intelligence operation that involved Mossad and CIA agents. Unlike other tenants in the World Trade Center, Zim’s stairwell access door were covered by security cameras.[54] The major media largely failed to report the story of Israeli intelligence teams masquerading as art students. Only Fox News referred to it in a four-part investigative series in December 2001 but soon removed it from its web site. At the time, reporter Carl Cameron stated, “There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the September 11 attacks, but investigators suspect that the Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it.”[55] However, Cameron’s report was somewhat bolstered by news reports in early 2002 that Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, in early September 2001, sent the CIA a warning of an impending Arab terrorist attack on the East Coast of the United States. Two three- man Mossad units consisting of Yemeni- and Egyptian-born Jews had apparently tracked some of the September 11 hijackers in Hamburg and south Florida. CIA chief George Tenet referred to the Mossad report as “too non-specific” and decided not to order any higher alert level throughout the CIA’s network of stations. Follow-up reports from the Mossad units referred to their quarry attending flight training. After the attacks, the Mossad teams left the United States on board El Al flights.[56] Newspapers across the United States also reported Israelis being arrested around U.S. military installations. In May 2001, two Israelis, Gal Kantor and Tsvi Watermann, were arrested at the Volk Field Air National Guard base at Camp Douglas in Juneau County, Wisconsin. They said they were going to visit a museum on the base but instead began taking photographs on the runway. When an Air Force security guard asked the young men if they were selling art, Kantor became upset and demanded to know why the question was being asked. Obviously, the Volk Field security personnel had been warned about the suspicious activities of Israeli art students. Three days before the two Israelis were arrested at Volk Field, four Israelis were arrested and deported after they were discovered selling art door-to-door in a neighborhood close to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Reflecting some sort of official sensitivity about the Volk Field incident, the base sent a news release to the Capital Times of Madison marked “for release on request only.”[57]
The Tinker Air
Force Base incident was confirmed by Midwest City Police Chief Brandon
Clabes who said his police officers “were on alert” because they received
a national security advisory warning that “Israeli nationals were posing
as students selling artwork… to gain information about the U.S. military
and security.” Clabes said his officers encountered the Israelis on May
17, 2002, shortly after 7:15 PM. Two of the Israelis were on foot
conducting “unusual door-to-door solicitations” in the Oakwood East
housing area. A third Israeli was acting as a driver. In addition to
several other photo identification cards, all three had Israeli Air Force
identification. Clabes identified the three Israelis as Naor Topaz, Zeev
Cahen, and Yaron Ohana. The three Israelis and a fourth member of their
team were later arrested by the police on visa violations. The Israelis
denied they were selling their artwork. Although the Air Force Office of
Special Investigations later denied the Israelis were involved in
espionage, Clabes said higher authorities in U.S. law enforcement believed
the Israelis were using the selling of art to get people to divulge
additional information by first engaging in “casual conversation about
art, and then start slipping in questions about who lived there, is their
family in the military--those types of things.”[58] Around 8:10 AM on September 11, 2001, American Airlines flight attendant Madeline Amy Sweeney, a 13-year veteran of the airline, used her cell phone to report to her supervisor at Logan Airport in Boston about the hijacking and murders occurring on her aircraft. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Memorandum written the same day stated that one of the hijackers assigned to seat 10B (reportedly Satam Al Suqami) shot and killed the passenger assigned to seat 9B. The passenger shot was reported to have been Daniel C. Lewin, an Israeli-American agent with the top secret Israeli anti-terrorist Unit 269 of the counter-terrorism Sayeret Matkal branch of the Israeli Defense Force. Lewin also served as the chief technology officer of Akamai Technologies, Inc., a software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[59] The 911 Commission Report stated that Lewin was stabbed and not shot by Suqami. While Lewin and Israel were praised in the report no mention was made of Sweeney’s last words to her superiors.
The FAA Memo, which was later reported by
the FAA to be alternately erroneous and a first draft, was eventually
scrubbed from the FAA’s internal e-mail system. The original FAA memo
stated:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
September 11, 2001 On September 11, 2001, several commercial air carrier incidents, believed to be terrorist-related, occurred in various locations in the United States. As numerous U.S. passenger air carriers were involved, this has impacted many passengers as well as numerous persons on the ground in these various crash sites. The following is a summary of the events, which have occurred:
American Airlines Flight 77,
departed Washington-Dulles International Airport (IAD), destined for Los
Angeles International Airport (LAX). This flight departed Gate D26 of the
IAD mid-field terminal at 8:09 a.m., and was airborne at 8:21 AM. The
aircraft type was a Boeing 757. Number of selectee passengers is unknown
at this time; ramp personnel noticed two selectees checked bags on the
ramp. One non-selectee passenger did not board due to confusion of gate
location. This flight consisted of fifty-eight passengers and six flight
crew members, which totaled sixty-four persons on this flight. There was
no cargo being transported on this aircraft. There were a total of
thirty-five checked bags. It is presumed that this flight crashed into the
Pentagon located in Washington, DC at approximately 10:00 AM.
911/01 5:31 PM One of the malls where the Israeli “toy sellers” based their operations was the Pentagon City Mall, just across Intersate 395 from the Pentagon. In July 2004, the mall served as the rendezvous point for alleged Israeli Pentagon spy Larry Franklin and Keith Weissman, an AIPAC official. Franklin warned Weissman that Iranian agents were going to start attacking American soldiers and Israeli agents in Iraq. Weissman then went to brief the account of the meeting to Steve Rosen, another senior AIPAC official. They both informed the Israeli embassy in Washington and Glenn Kessler, a reporter for The Washington Post. Those phone calls were being wiretapped by the FBI as part of its investigation of a major Israeli spy ring in the United States, an investigation that had been going on since before the 911 attacks. The FBI was also monitoring meetings between Franklin, Weissman, and Rosen, including one held in February 2003 at the Arlington, Virginia Ritz-Carlton hotel, which adjoins the Pentagon City Mall. [63] In February 2005, an Israeli man named Ohad Cohen was deported, along with four other Israelis, from Omaha, Nebraska. In what was becoming a common occurrence in the United States, a total of ten Israelis, who were working at shopping mall kiosks in the Omaha and Lincoln areas, were deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for illegally working in the United States on tourist visas. The Israelis operated out of Omaha’s Oak View Mall and Lincoln’s Gateway Westfield Mall. The Federal government probe was reported to be part of a wider probe of Israeli shopping mall kiosk activity throughout the Midwest. In December 2004, FBI and immigration officers arrested 15 Israelis in Minnesota and three operating from a mall kiosk in Grand Forks, North Dakota.[64] Omaha is also the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC). The International Association of Counter-terrorism and Security Professionals wrote in a May 2000 report that “U.S. law enforcement reports ‘numerous encounters’ with Middle Eastern ‘art students’ with ‘fraudulent documents’ who attempted to ‘gain unauthorized access’ to federal buildings.”[65] The unusual casing of sensitive locations continued after 911. According to informed sources in Corpus Christi, Texas, young Israelis were seen conducting surveillance of the Port of Corpus Christi in January 2002. The report was contained in the U.S. Coast Guard’s Corpus Christi Marine Safety Office Intelligence Bulletin. The bulletin stated:
Ø
Five men of Middle
Eastern descent taking photographs of the Clark Flagship charter boat at
11:30 at night.
Ø
A man and a woman of
Middle Eastern descent were taking pictures outside the fence of Citgo
East. Upon questioning by security personnel, the female stated they were
art students. She further added they were photographing a “pipe rack.” The
term is one that would only be used by someone in the industry. Coupled
along with several other suspicious indicators, the picture taking did not
seem legitimate.
Ø
Two men of
Middle Eastern descent drove through a gate at Citgo West after it was
opened to let a delivery truck out. The men drove straight down to the oil
docks where a ship was moored. Before security personnel could arrive, the
men boarded the ship for several minutes, and were en-route back out of
the facility. The men claimed to be selling electronic equipment. In a
search of their truck by the sheriff’s office, a loaded pistol was found
in the cab. They had also been denied access at an adjacent facility
shortly before this incident.[66]
In June 2004, groups of young and neatly dressed “Middle Eastern-looking” men were also spotted near the U.S.-Mexican border in Arizona’s Cochise County near Tombstone and the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Huachuca. A spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in Tucson said he was not at liberty to discuss the country of origin of the Middle Eastern-looking men.[68] According to FBI sources, “Middle Eastern-looking” or “Middle Eastern descent” are internal code words used to describe Israelis without having to face the inevitable political problems of identifying them as such. Copies of Department of Homeland Security morning briefs, classified “For Official Use Only,” were mistakenly leaked to the public from an Energy Department web site. The briefs contain a number of references to suspicious “Middle East looking” persons seen around sensitive U.S. facilities. The descriptions match identically the behavior of Israeli “art students” cited in the DEA Report and various other law enforcement encounters with Israeli “movers.” The September 27, 2004 brief stated:
MASSACHUSETTS: Possible Video Surveillance of Interstate Highway.
According to military reporting, on 22 September, in Lexington, a military
member reported observing four Middle Eastern individuals standing on an
I-95 overpass videotaping the northbound traffic and recording information
into a notebook. Reportedly, the same military member recalled observing
two of the individuals on the same overpass in late February or early
March 2004. (AFOSI Talon 102-23-09-04-2297; 23 Sep 04; HSOC 3579-04)[69] From the September 29, 2004 briefing there were additional reports of suspicious “Middle Easterners,” in addition to a report from San Francisco about suspicious activity by two individuals whose van was traced to a jewelry store in Seattle:
FLORIDA: Suspicious Photographing and Videotaping of High-Rise Buildings
Including the Main Street Bridge and the Skyway. According to 25
September Jacksonville Regional Domestic Security Task Force reporting, in
downtown Jacksonville, an off-duty police officer reported seeing one of
three people, whom he described as Middle Eastern in appearance,
photographing and videotaping high-rise buildings, to include the Main
Street Bridge and the Skyway. When the off-duty police officer pulled
alongside the minivan, the individual with the camera immediately put it
down, and the minivan departed the area. The off-duty police officer
reported the minivan’s license plate and description. The registration
showed the minivan was maroon, while the vehicle the officer saw appeared
gray. An investigation is on-going. (FDLE Daily Brief, 28 Sep 04; HSOC
3629-04) (FOUO)
WASHINGTON / CALIFORNIA: Suspicious Activity at USCG Group San Francisco.
According to USCG reporting, on 23 September, Coast Guard members observed
two individuals in a blue van taking pictures of the Bay Bridge and
surrounding area in front of USCG Group San Francisco’s main gate. The
license plates were traced to a jewelry store address in Seattle,
Washington. Additional checks revealed that the two individuals were not
owners, employed or had any association with the store. An investigation
is on-going. (COGARD San Francisco, 28 Sep 04; HSOC 3630-04)[70] From the September 30, 2004, Homeland Security brief, there were further descriptions of “Middle Eastern” activity: FOUO)
WASHINGTON: Suspicious Activity of Two Middle Eastern Males on Ferry.
According to USCG reporting, on 27 September, in Seattle, two Middle
Eastern males were observed studying the schematic of the Wenatchee Ferry
for an extended period of time. As soon as the two males noticed an
employee approaching, they immediately walked away from the schematic and
picked up a magazine to ward off attention. At the end of the voyage, the
two males returned to their vehicle. A license plate check revealed the
vehicle belonged to a rental company. Information from the rental company
on the vehicle indicated that it was a rented to a business located in
Tukwila. The business was unable to be located. An investigation is
on-going. (COGARD FIST Seattle, 28 Sep 04; HSOC 3657-04)[71] On October 14, 2004, a further report on “Middle Eastern” activity:
Suspicious Activity at Andrews AFB Main Gate.
According to military reporting, on 12 October, Andrews AFB security
officers observed a possible Middle Eastern male photographing the main
gate area using what appeared to be a small, disposable camera. When a
security officer approached the individual to question him, the
unidentified male left the gate area, walked across the street, met up
with another individual believed to also be of Middle Eastern origin,
entered a white, late-model Pontiac Grand Am and quickly departed the
area. Reportedly, a possible Middle Eastern female was sitting in the back
of the vehicle. (AFOSI Talon 331-12-10-04-2484, 12 Oct 04; HSOC 3876-04)[72] A particularly suspicious report was found in the October 19, 2004 brief. Several teams of Israeli art students had cased U.S. Air Force bases, including Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City:
MISSOURI: Suspicious Telephone Calls. According
to military reporting, on 15 October, at Whiteman Air Force Base [home
base for the B-2 bomber], an unknown male, described as having a heavy
Middle Eastern accent, telephonically contacted the 509 th Munitions
Squadron, claiming that he represented a not-for-profit organization and
wanted to confirm the squadron’s address. Reportedly, when questioned
about his organization, the unknown caller became belligerent and ended
the phone call. On 16 October, another member of the 509 th Munitions
Squadron received a call at his residence on his personal cellular
telephone from an unknown individual—also described as having a Middle
Eastern accent—who solicited information related to Whiteman AFB, where
the military member worked, and other operationally related questions. The
military member did not provide any information to the caller and hung up.
An investigation is on-going. (USAF Talon Report, 207-18-10-04-2533, 18
Oct 04; HSOC 3953-04)[73] From the October 26, 2004 brief: (FOUO)
ILLINOIS: Possible Surveillance Activity.
According to the Illinois State Terrorism Intelligence Center (STIC), on
22 October, in Joliet, at a worksite at the McDonough Street Bridge, a
construction foreman observed a male of possible Middle Eastern origin
taking photographs of the bridge. When the foreman told the unidentified
male to leave, the individual became upset and continued to photograph
nearby buildings before departing the area. Reportedly, the individual
left in a Chevrolet Cavalier with Minnesota plates which have been traced
back to a finance company in Boca Raton, Florida. (Illinois State Police
STIC, 25 Oct 04; HSOC 4065-04)[74]
The January 5, 2005 brief also
mentioned an incident involving a named Israeli citizen:
ISRAEL: Citizen of Israel Subject of TIPOFF and TSA No Fly has Visa
Revoked on January 3. According to BTS reporting
on 5 January, Samuel COHEN (DOB: 07/20/1969) arrived at LAX on COPA
airlines from Lima, Peru, seeking admission as a visitor for pleasure. At
LAX, the CT Watch determined that COHEN was a TIPOFF and NO FLY match.
Close coordination resulted in the Department of State (DOS) revoking
COHEN's visa on the spot. As a result of this revocation, COHEN was found
to not be in possession of proper documents and was processed for an
Expedited Removal. He is scheduled to depart 5 January, from the United
States on COPA airlines flight CM303. (BTS Daily Operations Report, 5 Jan
05, HSOC 0033-05)[78] On July 27, 2005, it was revealed that New York’s Metropolitan Transportation (MTA) Authority's Interagency Counter Terrorism Task Force was maintaining a database of individuals stopped and questioned for filming bridge and tunnel crossings around New York City. Some of the people in the database were stopped on more than one occasion for filming and photographing bridges and tunnels and in one case an individual who was stopped for filming a New York area bridge was discovered to be driving the same vehicle as another person who was stopped earlier for filming the Verazano Narrows Bridge. An MTA source revealed that much of the filming did not involve regular tourists, but much more. The source said the filming “appear[ed] to be more than just casual filming.” The filmers and photographers were concentrating on bridge beams (as in the case of the Memphis I-40 bridge) and security checkpoints. The MTA database includes individuals stopped for filming the bridges and tunnels under the control of the MTA: Verrazano, Triborough, Throgs Neck, Whitestone, Henry Hudson, Marine Parkway, Cross Bay Veterans Memorial, the Midtown Tunnel and the Battery Tunnel.[79] A number of Federal law enforcement authorities report that suspicious Israelis continue to be stopped around the nation photographing and filming sensitive facilities and infrastructures but are not charged and brought to trial. In October 2004, a suspicious Israeli was detained by the Delaware County, Oklahoma Sheriff’s Department. Two miles of State Highway 20, east of Jay, were closed down while an Oklahoma State Police Bomb squad searched the Israeli’s car for “possible terrorist activities.” As has been the modus operandi in such cases, the FBI from Tulsa questioned the Israeli, who could not produce either a passport or a visa, and released him after seven hours. The Israeli had an Arizona driver’s license showing an address in Gentry, Arkansas. The FBI said they were familiar with the Israeli. Delaware County Undersheriff Dale Eberle did not disclose the Israeli’s identity since he was never arrested. The 40-year old Israeli, who was married to a U.S. citizen, had been traveling around the Tulsa area with a tubular camera on the roof of his car. Police were notified that the camera looked like a pipe bomb. Eberle said police were concerned that the Israeli may have been targeting the Pensacola Dam and two watersheds that feed Tulsa. The Israeli had recording devices and tools in his car, according to a police inventory. The Israeli had been asking questions about local industries in Jay and when he stopped at a local diner he refused to use a glass or silverware because he did not want to leave fingerprints.[80] On May 15, 2003, Cloudcroft, New Mexico Police Chief Gene Green stopped a U-Haul van in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, near the White Sands Missile Test Range, for speeding. According to the Alamogordo Daily News, the two truck drivers had Israeli driver’s licenses and claimed they were hauling furniture from Austin to Chicago. Yet the rental agreement had expired two days earlier and New Mexico was way off track from the Austin to Chicago route. The Israelis then changed their story--they claimed they were dropping off furniture in Deming, New Mexico. But they could not provide a delivery address in the town. Also, their rental agreement was only for intrastate use in Illinois. Inside the truck, Chief Green found junk furniture not worth moving anywhere and 50 boxes that the Israelis claimed were a “private delivery.” The Israelis were turned over to INS and nothing more was heard about them or their “cargo.”[81] Consumers who have hired them have complained about suspicious behavior and illegal practices of Israeli-owned moving companies from Wisconsin to Florida to Pennsylvania. Advanced Moving Systems of Sunrise, Florida, an Israeli-owned moving company, complained that police in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina stopped several of its crews. The firm’s owner, Zion Rokah, claimed the police were “xenophobic and racist.”[82] Almost one year earlier, on May 7, 2002, two Israelis were arrested in Oak Harbor, Washington, near Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Police and Naval law enforcement investigators found traces of TNT and plastic explosives in a rental truck driven by the Israelis after they were stopped for speeding. One of the Israelis had an expired visa, an international driver’s license, and no identification. They claimed they had delivered furniture in Oak Harbor and were on their way back to Canada. A bomb-sniffing dog reacted to traces of explosive material on the truck’s steering wheel and gear shift. The FBI later said the explosive tests were negative and the INS, in keeping with tradition, refused to comment on the case.[83] In the days following September 11, a number of residents of Island County called emergency centers to report sightings of “Middle Eastern” looking men driving Canadian trucks.[84] In a similar incident on May 21, 2004, two Israeli men, Tamir D. Sason and Daniel Levy, both of Metar, Israel, and reported to have been working for an Atlanta moving company, attempted to enter the King’s Bay, Georgia U.S. Naval Submarine base. They were supposedly contracted to move someone from the base. As with the Whidbey Island incident, a bomb-sniffing dog alerted to a briefcase in the truck. Security guards became suspicious when one of the Israelis could not provide proper identification. The base went into a three-hour security lockdown and a bomb squad inspected the truck. As in the other cases involving Israelis trying to penetrate security perimeters, the Israelis were handed over to immigration authorities and the FBI refused comment. In addition to the FBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Navy Criminal Investigate Service were called in to investigate the Israeli incident.[85] King’s Bay is close to Sea Island, Georgia, the site of the June 2004 G-8 Summit, a fact that obviously piqued the interest of law enforcement officials in the area.
On May 10, 2004, two
other Israeli “movers” were apprehended suspiciously close to the Oak
Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee and the Federal Correctional
Institution in Butner, North Carolina where convicted Israeli spy Jonathan
Pollard was incarcerated. Driving a Ryder rental truck leased in
Plantation, Florida, Shmuel Dahan and Almaliach Naor, led Unicoi County
Sheriff Kent Harris on a high-speed chase. The Israelis claimed they were
delivering furniture to West Virginia but Harris wondered why they would
have been on the more remote two-lane U.S. Highway 23 rather than the
faster Interstate 26. The Israelis also possessed false identification
documents, Dahan a bogus Florida driver’s license issued in Plantation,
Florida and Naor a fake identification card. Harris also searched a
storage facility the Israelis rented in Mars Hill, North Carolina. The FBI
was called in to investigate but in typical fashion they turned the matter
over the U.S. immigration officers who scheduled a deportation hearing. An
FBI spokesman said the Israelis were guilty of nothing more than
littering. Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms also
joined the investigation. While chasing the Israelis, Harris noticed they
threw a vial out of the truck. The Israelis later denied they threw
anything out of the truck. The ejected container was reported to have
contained a suspicious “fuel source” that was sent to the Tennessee
Emergency Management office in Sevierville, Tennessee. It was later
discovered to have contained a mixture of a cleaning fluid called Astromid
18, Gluconic acid, and water. Harris said he was not sure why the
substances were mixed together. The Israelis also had a “Learn to Fly”
brochure in their truck. Harris said he “got a sick feeling” when he saw
the brochure and the business card of a Fort Launderdale, Florida-based
flight instructor named Nissan Giat, another Israeli citizen. Police
feared the Israelis might have been targeting the Nuclear Fuel Services
plant in nearby Erwin, Tennessee. A lawyer for the Israelis later claimed
they meant no harm, that Naor possessed a fake identification card so he
could get into a Miami nightclub. Naor’s age was never given.[86]
Although the Federal government said the Israelis posed no danger,
the state of Tennessee kept the case open. The DEA report on the
activities of Israeli “art students” cited a case in which the Federal
Protective Service arrested two Israeli art students in Plantation,
Florida for possession of fake Social Security cards. Plantation was also
the base of operations for Dahan. On October 17, 2001, three Israelis driving a truck were discovered by Plymouth, Pennsylvania police with possession of a close-up videotape of the Sears Tower in Chicago. Plymouth Police Chief David McCann reviewed the tape and then found the Sony camera inside the truck. The police had responded to a call that the Israelis were illegally dumping furniture into a dumpster behind a Pizzeria Uno restaurant from a tractor-trailer truck registered in Florida. When the restaurant manager confronted the Israeli driver he drove off quickly from the scene. The leader of the team who drove the truck sporting the sign “Moving Systems Incorporated” was Moshe Elmakias. Two other Israelis, a woman named Ayelet Reisler, and a man named Ron Katar, were also questioned by Plymouth police after the truck was seen parked. Reisler had a German passport in one name and a prescription in another name. Whitpain, Pennsylvania Police later discovered that the truck’s operator log had been falsified. All the evidence of the Whitpain and Plymouth police was collected by the FBI, which then deep-sixed the investigation in typical FBI fashion when it came to Israeli surveillance and espionage activity in the United States. Elmakias and Katar were turned over to the INS but Reisler was released.[87]
The Interstate 40 Hernando De
Soto Bridge in Memphis was also an apparent surveillance target for the
Israelis. According to the Arkansas State Police, a few days after 911,
the FBI and Memphis police were alerted to two Israelis (officially
reported to be of “Middle Eastern” appearance) taking photographs of the
De Soto span and the older Interstate 55 Bridge. The Israelis were
particularly interested in the undersides of the bridges. They had seven
cameras of different sizes and makes. Upon being detained by the FBI, the
men claimed to have diplomatic immunity and one produced a diplomatic
passport. After the Israelis were turned over to the INS, the FBI dropped
any further investigation.[88]
The Hernando de Soto Bridge in Memphis. Surveilled by Israelis a few days after 911. In early October 2001, the FBI was on a nationwide search for six Israelis stopped by the police in the Midwest and found to be in possession of box cutters and “other equipment.” The Israelis also had photos and descriptions of a Florida nuclear power plant and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The Israelis were traveling in groups of three in two white sedans. Although the INS ordered the men released, the FBI was reported to be furious that the Israelis were allowed to flee, possibly to Canada. The INS refused to reveal in what state the Israelis were stopped. Although their Israeli passports were reported valid, there was no way to know if their true identities matched those in the passports. The FBI refused to release the names and descriptions of the Israelis. FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft held a news conference on October 2, 2001 warning that a new wave of terrorist attacks could be expected in the United States. Their warning came after the Israelis were stopped in the Midwest.[89] In what may have been a related case, six Israelis were arrested in Cleveland in mid-October and were held incommunicado. A seventh Israeli woman was also reported to have been arrested.[90] On October 10, 2001, two Israelis, one a former Israeli Army Colonel and the other a Mossad agent, were arrested in the Mexican Congress with 9mm pistols and dynamite. According to the Mexican Justice Department official web site “the head of Congressional Security Salvador Alarcón verified that the Israelis had in their possession nine hand grenades, sticks of dynamite, detonators, wiring and two 9mm ‘Glock’ automatics.” The Israelis were subsequently released after the intervention of the Israeli embassy in Mexico City.[91] In 1990, the head of Colombia’s secret police, General Miguel Maza Marquez, blamed Israeli paramilitary training for a wave of terrorist attacks in Colombia during the entire year. These included the bombing of an Avianca passenger jet in November 1989 that killed 117 people, assassinations of local political leaders, and two attempts on his own life. A bombing of Maza’s police headquarters killed 63 people. Colombia responded to the Israeli involvement with terrorism by abrogating a 1962 no visa travel agreement with Israel.[92] In April 2004, New Zealand’s Foreign Minister called in Israel’s ambassador to that nation to complain about two suspected Mossad agents arrested at Auckland airport after trying to obtain false New Zealand passports. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) had cooperated in the sting of the Israelis, identified as Elisha Cara and Uri Zoshe Kelman. New Zealand and Australian police and intelligence services tied the Israelis to the Russian-Israeli mafia. Police were looking for a third suspected Mossad spy, Zev William Barkan, who was believed to have fled New Zealand for Israel, and a fourth unidentified Israeli believed to have gone into hiding in New Zealand. Barkan was later discovered to have served at Israeli embassies in Austria and Belgium. Police later identified a New Zealander named Anthony David Resnick, a 13-year veteran of the Israeli Defense Force and a member of Auckland’s Jewish Council, as another conspirator in the Mossad operation. Resnick reportedly fled to Israel. Cara and Kelman were both released on bail with the provision that they remain at two separate Auckland hotels but both Israelis violated their bail and checked out of their hotels.[93] They were eventually sentenced to six months in jail and New Zealand protested the illegal Mossad operation in New Zealand by suspending relations with Israel.[94] There were reports that the Israeli operation extended to Australia and that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) may have tipped off its New Zealand counterpart about the espionage ring. After tipping off New Zealand about Cara and his accomplices, Australian agents raided Cara’s rental home on Sydney’s north shore. Cara’s front was a Haifa-based travel agency called Eastward Bound.[95] After it was discovered that Kelman, an Israeli-Canadian, used a Canadian passport to enter New Zealand, Canada lodged a protest with Israel. In 1997, after two Mossad agents on an assassination mission were caught in Jordan using Canadian passports, Israel agreed to refrain from using Canadian passports in its intelligence operations.[96] In February 2005, it was reported that Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade ordered a senior Israeli embassy officer in Canberra to leave the country for his intelligence ties to Cara and Kelman. Although the opposition Australian Labor and Green parties demanded details of the explusion of the suspected Mossad agent, the John Howard government remained tight lipped about the matter.[97] Israeli President Moshe Katsav cancelled a March 2005 trip to New Zealand over the affair but he visited Australia on schedule. On January 12, 2000, Indian Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) agents arrested 11 Israelis disguised as Islamic preachers (“tabliqis”) before they boarded a Bangladesh Biman Airlines flight from Calcutta to Dhaka. The 11 Israelis, reported at first to be Afghans who spent some time in Iran, were to attend an Islamic conference in Dhaka but the government of Bangladesh denied them a visa. They all had one-way tickets to Dhaka, something that triggered alarms in Bangladesh. CBI officials were surprised when they discovered the arrested Islamic preachers were actually Israelis from the West Bank. After the Israelis were arrested, Israel exerted enormous pressure on the Indians to release them and permit them to return to Tel Aviv. A CBI official said, “It appeared that they could be working for a sensitive organization in Israel and were on a mission to Bangladesh.” It was suspected that the Israelis, who could have been Afghan Jews, may have been recruited by Mossad to penetrate Al Qaeda cells in Bangladesh.[98]
On January 11, 2000, India’s Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS)
issued a Top Secret circular (NO: ER/BCAS/PIC/CIRCULAR/99), regarding a
possible hijacking attempt on a Bangladesh Biman aircraft in India. The
circular was signed by India’s regional civil aviation security chief at
Calcutta Airport and copies were sent to other Indian agencies as well as
to the Bangladesh Biman office in Calcutta. It was this alert that helped
India and Bangladesh nab the 11 Israelis the following day.[99] *** The DEA-INS continued to have a “keen interest” in the activities of the Israeli art students. The DEA believed there may have been links between the Israeli espionage teams and trafficking in the drug Ecstasy. Although the Israelis denied any espionage activity in the United States, some of their supporters in the Bush administration have defended the art students claiming, “It is quite normal for young Israelites to travel around the world for one year after they complete their military service.” A March 8, 2002, an editorial in the Albuquerque Journal summed up the general angst and suspicion over the activities of the Israeli art students: When U.S. authorities suspect an organized team of spies is seeking to infiltrate sensitive federal office buildings and the homes of government employees, they should arrest and interrogate to get to the bottom of the plot. Instead, a draft report from the Drug Enforcement Administration reports that young Israelis posing as art students but suspected of espionage activities were merely deported.
DEA first said
the youths’ actions “may well be an organized intelligence-gathering
activity.” But immigration officials deported the suspicious Israelis,
said to number in the dozens, for visa violations.
Perhaps the officials had
forgotten the case of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian Navy intelligence
officer who gave classified information to the Israelis. It was an
operation that Israel eventually acknowledged was known and approved of in
the highest reaches of the Israeli government. Pollard has served some 13
years of a life sentence.
The recent arrests were made in
a number of major U.S. cities from California to Florida, amid public
warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies about suspicious behavior by
people posing as Israeli art students and “attempting to bypass facility
security and enter federal buildings.”
The United
States owes no duty to Israel to ignore spying. Israel, it could be
argued, should at least be grateful enough to the United States that it
should be reluctant to try to steal secrets.[100]
Perhaps the espionage incident would have faded
entirely had it not been for the fact that similar art students, with
unbelievable alibis, were caught in 2003 by Canadian security police
around the Houses of Parliament in Ottawa. On September 12, 2003, nine Israeli art students were arrested by Canadian Immigration officers and Ottawa police on Lisgar Street, just a few blocks from Parliament Hill, the day after the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The Canadian police were tipped off by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) that the Israelis, who were reported selling paintings in downtown Ottawa, were possible Mossad agents. The Israeli embassy spokesman in Ottawa used the same sort of language used by his Washington, DC counterpart to brush aside the arrests as routine, “We don't know full details about what the paintings were but it was a completely commercial matter,” said Ben Forer, the spokesman for the Israeli embassy.[101] The arrests followed similar arrests of Israeli art students in Calgary, Toronto, and Saskatoon, according to Canadian Immigration officials. Residents of the Ottawa suburban district of Centrepoint had complained about Israelis selling fake art in 2001. Canadian authorities issued exclusion orders for all nine Israelis arrested in Ottawa and ordered them deported. Residents of the Ottawa suburban district of Centrepoint had complained about Israelis selling fake art in 2001. In August 2004, two ringleaders of an Israeli “art student” door-to-door sales scam, Guy Grinberg and Yukov Senior, were deported from Canada for operating an art sales ring in Alberta. The “art student” ring operated in Calgary, Edmonton, and Red Deer. Eight others were rounded up with the art sales ringleaders. Three apparently escaped Canadian law enforcement arrest.[102] In neighboring Manitoba, twelve Israelis – six men and six women – were arrested in Winnipeg for selling the junk art.[103] It is interesting to note the answers that some of the Israelis gave when they were questioned by the immigration court. Thanks to the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board, transcripts of the hearings were made available and they permit the reader to have an inside view of how the Israeli art selling rings operated, both in Canada and the United States. Five transcripts were provided but two provide interesting details of the art selling rings. The Canadian immigration authorities did not believe most of the evasive explanations provided by the Israelis. The answers of the team leader, Roy Laniado, are extremely interesting, especially his discussion of his “boss,” an unnamed individual who traveled from the United States to Canada. As a result of the secrecy surrounding the INS roundup of some 120 Israeli “art students” in the United States, Americans never had the opportunity to know the inside story of how the operation worked: |
