Pathways from September 11 to January 6th

Today’s focus is…

…on Ali Soufan, Lebanese-American patriot, former FBI agent serving
under FBI chief John O’Neill (see previous post) whose dedication to
American principles is informed by a childhood spent in the chaos of
Lebanon’s civil war. An Arabic speaker and expert interrogator in his
former role, he and his team gained the information that Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11, as well as the identity of the
9-11 hijackers. All of this high value information was gained through
traditional interrogation techniques. Soufan worked with John on the
1998 East Africa Embassy bombings investigation, and was the case
agent for the 2000 USS Cole bombing investigation in Yemen. Ali’s work
with colleagues on the Cole led them–unwittingly at that point–to the
doorstep of the 9/11 plot ten months in advance of the disaster.
Had the CIA not withheld from John and Ali critical information
they asked for multiple times, both formally and informally, the attacks
of September 11th in high likelihood would have evaporated from history
in the hands of the most seasoned al-Qaeda law enforcement officials
in the world.

See more “Recent Posts” in this blog series: Pathways from September 11 to January 6th

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