Other Case Summaries
The following five cases have been selected from among many to show the variety of terrorist cases that might be encountered during the course of the personnel security process. Two were Muslim immigrants to the United States; two were native-born Americans who converted to Islam (one white, one black); and one involves a group of second or third generation Americans who grew up in a Muslim community in New York.
Almaliki Nour gained American citizenship under a false identity, worked as a linguist for an intelligence unit of the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq, and there are open questions about his true identity and what damage he may or may not have caused. Sgt. Hasan Akbar is a black convert to Islam who tried to kill as many members of his military unit as possible as they were getting ready to move into Iraq. The Lackawanna Six are Americans of Yemeni heritage from upper New York state who were recruited by an al-Qaida operative to train for jihad in Afghanistan. Iyman Faris fought with the mujihadeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan; after immigration to America, this Ohio truck driver was recruited by al-Qaida and tasked to assist in destroying the Brooklyn Bridge and causing a train wreck near Washington. Ryan Anderson, a white convert to Islam, was a tank ammunitions loader in the Army National Guard; he worked the Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards seeking contact with al-Qaida so he could explain how to damage the M1A1 Abrams tank and kill more American soldiers.
The case of Almaliki Nour (aka Noureddine Malki) illustrates the difficulties involved in conducting security checks on individuals who have lived significant portions of their lives outside the United States. U.S. agencies are currently attempting to increase foreign language capacity by hiring naturalized citizens or other Americans who are native speakers of foreign languages, but for those who grew up abroad, their backgrounds are not easy to check. 1
Almaliki Nour claimed to have been born in December, 1960, in Beirut, that he had never been married, and that his parents had been killed in Beirut when his family’s house was shelled during the civil war there in the early 1980s.1 He claimed to have fled Lebanon to escape religious persecution there because his mother was Roman Catholic and his father Muslim. He went first to Jordan, then to Canada before crossing illegally into the United States. He applied for political asylum in 1989, was granted permanent resident status in 1993 through an Immigration & Naturalization Service amnesty program, and became a naturalized citizen in Brooklyn, NY, on February 18, 2000. 2, 3
Nour started work in August 2003 for a defense contractor, Titan Corporation, which provides the Army with about 4,000 Arabic language interpreters in Iraq. He received a security clearance and was assigned as a civilian translator and interpreter for an intelligence unit of the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq. He worked in Iraq for two years. 2
Apparently in response to security concerns, the FBI and military investigators interviewed Nour in Iraq in September 2005.2 He was subsequently arrested, held without bail, and charged on October 17, 2005, in Brooklyn, NY, with lying to federal officials from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Department of Defense (DoD), and FBI on three occasions: his application for naturalization in 1998, his application for a security clearance in 2003, and in the September 2005 interviews. 1
He was charged as FNU LNU -- First Name Unknown and Last Name Unknown -- because he had at various times used the names Abu Hakim, Almalik Nour Eddin, and Noureddine Malki, as well as the name Nour Almalik that is on his citizenship papers. After his arrest, he claimed his true identity to be Noureddine Malki, born in Morocco in November 1959, with a wife and parents still living in Morocco. Some Morocco connection appears to be confirmed by a Moroccan power of attorney found in searching his apartment and records that he wired large sums of money -- equivalent to one year's salary -- to a woman in Morocco believed to be his wife. 1, 3
The search of Nour aka Malki's apartment also found a thick, classified document containing "detailed information about the insurgency [in Iraq] and the means for combating it." Monitoring of his telephone identified about 100 calls to numbers in Iraq that have been connected to the insurgency there, including numbers that had been found in safe houses that may have been used by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida's Iraq operations. 2
Nour aka Malki has not been charged with terrorism or espionage, but he has
also not yet been tried or sentenced for falsification of his identity, and there has been no announcement of his
status since shortly after his arrest. It seems reasonable to conclude that
investigation of this case, and the damage Nour aka Malki may have caused, might be
ongoing.
Hasan Akbar (also spelled Asan Akbar) was arrested and convicted for a hand grenade and shooting attack that killed two U.S. officers and wounded 14 soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division. The attack took place March 23, 2003, at a rear base camp, Camp Pennsylvania, in Kuwait. Akbar took grenades from a humvee he was guarding and threw them into a tent in the early morning when the majority of troops were sleeping. He also fired his rifle during the chaos that followed the grenade explosions.4 The 101st was preparing to move into Iraq in support of the U.S. invasion when the incident occurred.
Akbar is an African-American who was born in 1971 and grew up largely in California. Originally named Mark Fidel Kools, his mother began calling him Hasan Karim Akbar when he was a boy after she converted to Islam and remarried. He was an A student in high school in Los Angeles.5 He enrolled as Mark Kools at the University of California at Davis in 1988, where he participated in the Muslim Student Association. He enrolled in a joint major, aeronautical and mechanical engineering. It took him 9 years to finish his joint degree, because he drifted in and out of school, stopping and starting classes.6 He graduated as Hasan Akbar in September 1997, having legally changed his name sometime during the 9-year period.5 That year he enrolled in a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program, but left with the rank of sergeant, not lieutenant, as might have been expected. 6
When asked why he committed the attack, Akbar said, "I did it because I'm Muslim. They were going to kill Muslims and rape Muslim women."7 He also told his mother that he thought he was discriminated against because he was a Muslim.8 Akbar was known to have an attitude problem, and just before the incident, he had been reprimanded for insubordination. In fact, his superiors were sufficiently alarmed about his attitude that they told him he would be left behind in Kuwait when his unit moved out to Iraq. After the attack, Akbar's diary was found to have a notation that said, “I am going to try to kill as many of them as possible.” 10
Akbar was convicted by a military court
martial on April 21, 2005, on two counts of premeditated murder and three counts of attempted
premeditated murder. The following week the court sentenced Akbar to death, a
sentence that has been appealed. 4
The once-prosperous town of Lackawanna, just outside Buffalo, NY, used to be home to the world’s largest steel works. Since Bethlehem Steel closed its plant in the 1980s, the area has become run down and many residents struggle to support themselves and their families. Of a population of some 19,000, at least 3,000 are Muslim Americans whose parents or grandparents immigrated from Yemen, attracted many years ago by the prospect of work in the mills. Many children and grandchildren of these original immigrants were born and raised in Lackawanna. 11
Today, Lackawanna is known for its terrorist cell. Six young men from the town were arrested in September 2002 and charged with providing “material support or resources to designated terrorist organizations.” They were not charged with actively engaging in any terrorist plot. Five of the six were born and raised in Lackawanna. They were educated in local public schools, captained soccer teams, and several had wives and children. 12
The story of how these individuals found themselves in this position starts in 1998 when Kamal Derwish, born in Buffalo but raised in Saudi Arabia and steeped in that country’s fundamentalist brand of Islam, came to Lackawanna and began giving informal talks between nighttime and evening prayers at the local mosque. He attracted a core group of followers with whom he also met in one of the members' home. This is the standard al-Qaida recruitment modus operandi. In early 2001, Juma al-Dosari, a charismatic preacher, also spoke at the Lackawanna mosque, although his militant tone resulted in his not being invited back.
After Derwish told this core group that attacks on Muslims around the world obligate them to train for jihad to defend their Muslim brothers, seven friends decided to travel in Spring 2001 to train for jihad in Afghanistan. Their cover story for family and friends was that they were going to Pakistan to study at a religious school as part of a quest for their Islamic faith. 12
Only six actually made the trip. They were met in Pakistan by Derwish who took them to the Al Farooq training camp in Afghanistan. Here they trained in the use of automatic weapons, M-16 rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and explosives. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, visited the camp. After the would-be terrorists left the United States, someone in Lackawanna's Yemeni community sent an anonymous letter to the FBI saying that a group has traveled to "meet bin Laden and stay in his camp for training...I can not give you my name because I fear for my life." 12
The conditions and training at the camp were harsh, and only two of the group of six finished the 6-week course: the rest were allowed to return home early. One member of the group, Sahim Alwan, realized he was in over his head after only 10 days and feigned an ankle injury in order to return home. He was interviewed by Osama bin Laden before he left, which was only a few months before the 9/11 attacks, and was asked, among other things, what he thought about martyrdom operations (suicide missions). On arrival home, Alwan was interviewed by the FBI but maintained the cover story that the group had gone for religious training. By the end of June, four of the men were back in Lackawanna and the other two returned in August. 12
The Buffalo FBI office was suspicious of the group's cover story but had no hard evidence of a serious crime. They began to investigate allegations that the Lackawanna suspects were involved in criminal activity. There were allegations of a drug connection because the men, some hardly employed, lived and dressed quite comfortably. 12,14 But for the next year the case progressed slowly.
In the fall of 2001, after 9/11, Juma al-Dosari, the charismatic preacher, was captured while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation. He provided information that stimulated interest in Derwish. Derwish had trained in Afghanistan in 1992 and fought with Muslims in Bosnia. In the Spring of 2002, U.S. intelligence learned Derwish's several aliases and realized that it had intercepted communications between him and two important al-Qaida figures, one of them involved in the USS Cole bombing. This recognition that Derwish was an important al-Qaida operative raised concerns that the Lackawanna group was a sleeper cell waiting for instructions to strike. Warrants were issued to conduct round-the-clock surveillance on members of the group. 12
The FBI monitored phone calls from Derwish in Yemen to some members of the group that appeared to be intended to assess their status or availability. It also intercepted e-mails from one of the group, Mukhtar al-Bakri, who was then in Bahrain. One of them appeared particularly suspicious. The e-mail was entitled "Big Meal" and read in English translation as follows:
"How are you my beloved, God willing you are fine. I would like to remind you of obeying God and keeping him in your heart because the next meal will be very huge. No one will be able to withstand it except those with faith. There are people here who had visions and their visions were explained that this thing will be very strong. No one will be able to bear it." 12
Al-Qaida uses code works in messages like these to communicate with its operatives. The phone calls and e-mails raised intense concern that the Lackawanna group was about to be activated for a major terrorist attack. At this point, the Buffalo FBI field office was required to send briefings on the results of their investigation to FBI Headquarters twice a day, and these were often passed on to the White House in the president's daily threat briefings.
At the request of the CIA, al-Bakri was detained by the Bahrain police, coincidentally on his wedding night. He admitted to having traveled to the Al Farooq camp in late spring and early summer and also gave the names of the rest of the Lackawanna group. Based on al-Bakri's testimony, the six Lackawanna men were arraigned in September, 2002, and charged with providing material support to al-Qaida. The media immediately dubbed them the “Lackawanna Six.” 12
All six originally pleaded not guilty but later agreed to plead guilty to material support for terrorism, cooperated with the government, and were sentenced in December 2003 to between 7 and 10 years in prison.12,15 It is widely believed that none of the six ever committed an actual terrorist act. However, the FBI special agent in charge of the Buffalo office noted afterwards that in addition to the convictions they gathered intelligence that helped the CIA. He said, "I believe truly that we prevented at least one terrorist attack, because we were able to use the [Lackawanna Six] to lead us to others."16 One of the defendants in his plea bargain said he knew of a second group from Lackawanna that was considering traveling to the Afghan camp for jihad training. 13
A seventh member of the original Lackawanna group, Jaber Elbaneh, had told others during their training that he was intent on becoming a martyr. 12 He was with al-Qaida in Yemen at the time of the arrests, and the United States offered a $5 million reward for his capture. He was subsequently taken into custody by Yemeni authorities, but he was one of 32 prisoners who escaped from prison through a 150-yard tunnel to a nearby mosque in January 2006.17 Kamal Derwish, the Saudi born in Buffalo who recruited the Lackawanna cell members to go to the training camp, was killed in November, 2002, by a CIA Predator drone missile attack on the al-Qaida leadership in Yemen. The drone was tracking one of planners of the bombing of the USS Cole, which had killed 17 U.S. sailors in a Yemeni port in October 2000. 12,18
Iyman Faris was an Ohio truck driver and al-Qaida agent tasked to investigate ways to bring down the Brooklyn bridge. Also known as Mohammad Rauf, he was born in Kashmir in 1969. Faris entered the United States in May 1994 on a student visa but never entered school. He married an American woman in 1995 and became a U.S. citizen in December 1999. Working as a truck driver from his home in Columbus, OH, he was licensed to haul flammable and poisonous chemicals, which gave him access to cargo planes at airports and to businesses. He pleaded guilty May 1, 2003, to charges of providing material support, and conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaida. 19
Available unclassified sources do not provide information on Faris' early years or how he ended up in Ohio. We do know that he fought with the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war in the mid-1980s, and that Faris was subsequently visited in Ohio by a old friend from that time with whom he had maintained a continuing relationship. In late 2000 Faris traveled with that friend to Pakistan and a training camp in Afghanistan where he met with Osama bin Laden. Court documents describe this friend as bin Laden’s “right foot,” a man who provides supplies and materials needed by al-Qaida.20 Faris completed a number of jobs for al-Qaida in Pakistan. For example, he did some Internet searches on the subject of ultralight planes and provided them to al-Qaida for possible use as an escape plane.21 He also helped procure 2,000 sleeping bags for use by al-Qaida. In late December 2001, he bought several airline tickets to Yemen for use by al-Qaida operatives.
In early 2002, and only months after 9/11, Faris again visited his old friend in Karachi, who introduced him to Osama bin Laden’s No. 3 man, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 plan. Mohammed asked Faris what he could do for al-Qaida. There was a discussion about Faris’s work as a truck driver and the fact that he had access to airport cargo planes. Mohammed said he was interested in cargo planes, because “they could hold more weight and more fuel.” 22
Mohammed then told Faris that al-Qaida is again planning attacks in New York and Washington. These were to be simultaneous attacks on the Brooklyn Bridge and on a train in the Washington, DC, area. Faris was tasked to research tools for cutting the bridge’s suspension cables and for derailing trains. After returning to the United States in April 2002, Faris did check out the bridge and the possible tools that might be used. In early 2003, he sent a coded e-mail message to al-Qaida that “the weather is too hot,” meaning that he did not think an attack on the bridge would be feasible. 20
Shortly after Faris sent this e-mail, its recipient, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was arrested in Pakistan, and a search of his computer led the authorities to Faris.23 After a period of surveillance, federal agents approached Faris about cooperating with the government.24 Faris was installed for a brief period in a guarded safe house in Virginia from where, under the control of U.S. authorities, he sent messages to his terrorist commanders by cell phone and e-mail. 25
Faris was sentenced on October 28, 2003, to 20 years in prison “for providing material support and resources to al-Qaida and conspiracy for providing the terrorist organization with information about possible U.S. targets for attack.”26 It is not known from open sources when Faris first started working for al-Qaida. In view of his previous service as a mujihadeen in Afghanistan, it is possible that he was dispatched to this country in 1994 as an al-Qaida sleeper agent.
Ryan Gibson Anderson, 26, was arrested February 12, 2004, for attempting to pass information about military capabilities to al-Qaida over the Internet. A white, American-born, Muslim convert, Anderson was a Specialist (E-4) and tank crewman with the 303rd Armor Battalion of the 81st Armor Brigade at Fort Lewis, WA.27 He was raised in Everett, WA, and converted from his Lutheran upbringing to Islam in about 1998. He attended Washington State University where he studied Middle Eastern military history and graduated with a BA degree in 2002, after which he enlisted in the Army National Guard. 28
A year later, Anderson was logging on to extremist Internet chat rooms, trying to get in touch with
al-Qaida operatives to offer them information on U.S. military capabilities
and weaponry. A tip to the FBI from a woman in Conrad, MT, began the
investigation. The woman’s hobby is to search for Internet chat rooms and
bulletin boards frequented by radical Muslim and jihad warriors. It was she who
discovered Anderson, in late 2003, using his Muslim name, Amir Tallah, and asking
in e-mails
how to defect to the other side. She began to realize after a four-month period
of exchanges, in which she posed as an Algerian with ties to Algeria’s outlawed
Armed Islamic Group, that he was an American, in the National Guard, and about to be
deployed to Iraq. He appeared willing to share information on American troop
vulnerabilities with the enemy.29 The February 2004
arrest occurred after a joint sting investigation by the U.S. Army, Justice
Department, and FBI. Anderson's unit deployed to Iraq just weeks after his
arrest.
During the sting operation, Anderson was clear about his intentions in cell-phone text messages, e-mails, and meetings with undercover agents.30 He was monitored on tape saying the: “I wish to desert from the U.S. Army. I wish to defect from the United States. I wish to join al-Qaeda, train its members and conduct terrorist attacks.”28 He was arrested after offering to pass on to al-Qaida 800 pages of documents describing the armor being deployed in Iraq. He did not succeed in actually making contact with al-Qaida members. 31
Anderson’s defense was that he suffered from bipolar disorder and from a
high-functioning form of autism that impairs cognitive and social functioning.28 The defense claimed that
Anderson could not form the criminal intent needed for a guilty verdict. The
prosecution, in rebuttal, showed a clip from a secretly recorded videotape of a
meeting with undercover agents in which Anderson told the men that he was a tank
ammunitions loader and explained how to damage the M1A1 Abrams, the Army’s
primary battle tank, and kill American soldiers. This, the prosecution asserted,
was the “real Ryan Anderson,” a person with “no empathy for others and [who]
jeopardized his fellow soldiers.” 30
On September 2, 2004, the jury of nine commissioned officers at Fort Lewis, WA, found Anderson guilty on five counts of attempting to aid and provide intelligence to the enemy. He was given a demotion to the rank of private, a dishonorable discharge, and sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, 28
1. Waterman, S. (2005, October 23). Linguist in Iraq accused of fraud. United
Press International. Retrieved April 27, 2006, from
http://washingtontimes.com/national/
20051022-110336-2613r.htm
2. Rashbaum, W.K. (2005, November 8). Translator in Iraq war lied in citizenship bid, U.S. says. The New York Times. Retrieved April 27, 2006, from http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7000933610
3. Lubold, G. (2005, October 20). Interpreter given high-level clearance, but who is he? Army Times. Retrieved April 27, 2006, from http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1187262.php
4. Hasan Akbar. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved May 1, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Akbar
5. Martin, M., & Gledhill, L. (2003, March 25). Retracing life
of attack suspect UC Davis grad is Muslim with alleged doubts about Iraq war.
San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved May 2, 2006, from
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cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/03/25/MN195182.DTL
6. Profile: US soldier Hasan Akbar (2005, April 29). BBC News. Retrieved May 2, 2006, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4496989.stm
7. Akbar convicted of murder. (2005, April 22). Associated Press. Retrieved May 4, 2006, from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,154220,00.html
8. Army: U.S. soldier acted out of resentment. (2003, March 24). Fox News. Retrieved May 1, 2006, from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81898,00.html
10. Royale, R. (2005, October 20). The father, the son, the Holy Ghost. Real Change News. No longer available on the Internet.
11. Wypijewski, J. (2003, March/April). Living in the age of
fire. Mother Jones. Retrieved February 2, 2006, from
http://motherjones.com/news/
feature/2003/03/ma_275_01.html
12. Chronology: The Lackawanna investigation. (2003, October
16). PBS. Retrieved February 2, 2006, from
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
shows/sleeper/inside/cron.html
Also, Powell, M. (2003, July 29). No choice but guilty: Lackawanna case
highlights legal tilt, p. A1. Washington Post.
13. Buffalo terror suspect admits al-Qaida training. (2003, May 30). CNN. Retrieved February 2, 2006, from http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/20/buffalo.terror/
14. Niman, M.I. (2004, March/April). The Lackawanna Six and
Rambo III. The Humanist. Retrieved February 2, 2006, from
http://mediastudy.com/
articles/av12-18-03.html
15. ‘Lackawanna Six’ plead not guilty. (2002, October 22).
CBS News. Retrieved February 2, 2006, from
http://cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/23/
attack/main522894.shtml
16. Peckenpaugh, J. (2003, October 15). A new dragnet. Government Executive.
Retrieved May 6, 2006, from
http://www.govexec.com/
features/1103sam/1103samS8.htm
17. Starr, B. & Frieden, T. (2006, February 8). Second terrorist ID'd in Yemen jailbreak. Retrieved May 5, 2006, from http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/02/08/yemen.escape/
18. Hirschkorn, P. (2003, December 3). al-Qaida trainee gets 10-year sentence. CNN.com. Retrieved February 2, 2006, from http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/12/03/buffalo.six/
19. Ohio trucker joined Al-Qaeda jihad. (2003, June 19). CNN.com/Law Center. Retrieved January 22, 2006, from www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/19/alqaeda.plea/
20. United States of America v. Iyman Faris. (n.d.).
http://fl1.findlaw.com/
news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/faris/usfaris603criminf.pdf
21. Iyman Faris. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved January 22, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iyman_Faris
22. Alleged terror trucker pulls plea. (2003, September 26) CBS News. Retrieved
January 22, 2006, from
http://www.cbsnews.com/
stories/2003/06/20/terror/main559532.shtml
23. Thomas, P., Walsh, M., & Ryan, J. (2003, September 8). Officials search for terrorist next door in U.S. ABCNews. http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=129090&WNTad=true. No longer available on the Internet.
24. Arena, K. (2003, June 20) Sources: Faris under surveillance before approached about cooperating. CNN. Retrieved January 23, 2006, from http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/20/faris.plea.details/
25. Rennie, D. (2003, June 23). Captured al-Qa’eda man was FBI spy.
The Telegraph. Retrieved January 22, 2006, from
http://www.informationclearinghouse.
info/article3884.htm
26. Department of Justice (October 28, 2003). Iyman Faris
sentenced for providing material support to al Qaeda. Retrieved January 19, 2006 from
http://www.usdoj.gov/
opa/pr/2003/October/03_crm_589.htm
27. Malkin, M. (2004, February 13). Trailing attempted espionage. Who is Ryan
Anderson, aka Amir Tallah? Retrieved April 25, 2006, from
http://www.nationalreview.com/
comment/malkin200402130909.asp
28. Ryan G. Anderson. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved April 25, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_G._Anderson
29. Carter, M. (2004, June 20). Ordinary citizens become cyber-spies in terror fight. Seattle Times. This article is no longer available on the Internet.
30. Mitchell, M. (n.d.). Soldier guilty of trying to aid al-Qaida. The Niqabi
Paralegal. Retrieved April 25, 2006, from
http://www.niqabiparalegal.com/
archives/2004/09/ryan_anderson_c_1.php
31. Soldier held on suspicion of espionage. (2004, February 13). CNN. Retrieved
April 26, 2006, from
http://www.cnn.com/2004/
US/02/12/natl.guard.espionage/