CONFIRMED: FBI Introduced Florida Shooter to "Informants"
June 14, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - It is now confirmed that in addition to two investigations and two interviews, Florida terror suspect Omar Mateen was also approached by "informants" working for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) over a period of 10 months.
New York Daily News in their article, "FBI spied on Orlando gay club terrorist Omar Mateen for 10 months in 2013: FBI Director James Comey," would admit (emphasis added):
Mateen first appeared on authorities' radar in 2013 after the security guard's colleagues alerted the FBI to inflammatory statements he made to colleagues claiming "family connections to Al Qaeda," according to Comey.Informants Posing as Handlers
Mateen also told coworkers he had a family member who belonged to Hezbollah, a Shia network that is a bitter enemy of ISIS — the network he pledged allegiance to the night of the carnage, Comey noted.
The FBI's Miami office opened an inquiry into Mateen.
"He said he hoped that law enforcement would raid his apartment and assault his wife and child so he could martyr himself," Comey said.
Nevertheless, FBI investigators investigated Mateen, who was born in New York, for 10 months. They introduced him to confidential informants, spied on his communications and followed him. They also interviewed him twice.
The significance of this cannot be understated. "Informants" in this context, according to FBI affidavits regarding similar counterterrorism investigations, refers to individuals posing as members of terrorist organizations who approach suspects, coerce them into planning and preparing for terrorist attacks, before finally aiding the FBI in the suspect's arrest before the attack is finally carried out.
Among the activities these informants carry out includes providing and training suspects in the use of real explosives, providing suspects with arsenals of weapons precisely like those used in the recent shooting in Orlando Florida, and encouraging suspects to adopt "radical ideology" over the course of the investigation. Suspects are given the false impression that they are working on behalf of terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda or the self-proclaimed "Islamic State," often cultivating delusions of grandeur among otherwise mentally ill suspects.
The Intercept in its recent article, "Before Nightclub Shooting, FBI Pursued Questionable Florida "Terror" Suspects," would note that the FBI's Miami office who investigated Mateen, has been "among the bureau's most active and aggressive counterterrorism units."
It would also report on the specifics of this unit's activities:
For more than a year ending in April — a time during which investigators will now be looking for any clues from Mateen that might have been missed — the FBI in Miami focused on a counterterrorism sting that targeted James Medina, a homeless man with mental problems.The Intercept would reveal that the FBI informant, not Medina, came up with the idea of crediting the planned attack to the "Islamic State." In fact, upon reading the FBI's affidavit (.pdf), it is clear the FBI's informant encouraged and walked Medina through every aspect of the planned attack, including providing him with what he thought was an explosive device.
Upon reading Medina's incoherent conversations with various FBI informants, it is clear he possessed neither the mental or technical capacity on his own to perpetrate the attacks he was arrested for.
The Intercept would continue:
Nearly a year before Medina’s arrest, the FBI's Miami office arrested another supposed terrorist, 23-year-old Cuban-American Harlem Suarez, also known as Almlak Benitez, whom former co-workers described as "a little slow." The government alleged that Suarez conspired with an FBI informant to bomb a beach in Key West in support of the Islamic State. The FBI provided a fake backpack bomb.Finally, the Intercept would reveal (emphasis added):
The Orlando shooting isn't the first case to raise this question. In 2011, when the FBI investigated Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, agents did not deem him a threat.Rezwan Ferdaus, like Medina, was provided assistance by the FBI every step of the way, including being provided 24 lbs of C4 explosives, 6 fully automatic AK47 rifles, and 3 grenades - the FBI's own affidavit reveals (.pdf). He was brought deep into a fictional world where he believed he was working directly with Al Qaeda for nearly a year - told that "detonation devices" he constructed and passed on to FBI informants were "used" in Iraq to "kill" American soldiers.
Instead, at about the same time, the Boston FBI started a nine-month sting operation against Rezwan Ferdaus, who had no weapons and no connections to international terrorists, and whose mental wellness had deteriorated so much that he was wearing adult diapers at the time of his arrest on terrorism charges.
Image: The FBI provided Ferdaus with thousands of dollars to purchase various pieces of equipment for his planned "drone attack" on Washington D.C.
The FBI's informants conduct similar practices in virtually all of their investigations.
In 2010, the FBI investigated naturalized US citizen and Oregon resident Mohamed Osman Mohamud. In their own official statement titled, "Oregon Resident Arrested in Plot to Bomb Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in Portland," released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on November 26, 2010 it was stated (emphasis added):
According to the affidavit, on November 4, 2010, Mohamud and the undercover FBI operatives traveled to a remote location in Lincoln County, Ore., where they detonated a bomb concealed in a backpack as a trial run for the upcoming attack.The FBI in February 2012 provided another suspect with live explosives in the lead up to what was ultimately a foiled suicide bombing planned with the help of FBI informants at the US Capitol.
Image: The bomb the FBI constructed for the Portland "Christmas tree bomber."
USA Today reported in their article, "FBI foils alleged suicide bomb attack on U.S. Capitol," that (emphasis added):
According to a counterterrorism official, El Khalifi "expressed interest in killing at least 30 people and considered targeting a building in Alexandria and a restaurant, synagogue and a place where military personnel gather in Washington before he settled on the Capitol after canvassing that area a couple of times," the Associated Press writes. During the year-long investigation, El Khalifi detonated explosives at a quarry in the capital region with undercover operatives. He is not believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, officials said.Considering the disturbing activities conducted by FBI informants during these "investigations," the FBI appears obligated to tell the American public just what their "informants" were doing with Florida shooting suspect Omar Mateen in the 10 months they were "investigating" him beginning in 2013.
Did they also walk Mateen through planned attacks he ultimately backed out of? Did he eventually change his mind again after the FBI's investigation was allegedly closed?
The American media and US elected representatives have an obligation to ask these questions, obtain this information from the FBI, and to reevaluate the FBI's means and methods of investigating potential suspects through what is clearly a dangerous process of entrapment, indoctrination, and deceit.
The FBI's counterterrorism program has not made America safer. It has clearly been used to provide a steady stream of "foiled attacks" that otherwise would never have materialized - causing hysteria, hatred, fear, and division across American society. The FBI's counterterrorism program has also clearly failed monumentally to stop actual terror suspects known to them before real attacks have unfolded.
The FBI is supposed to represent an asset for the domestic security of the United States - but in reality it appears to be one of the most compromised of liabilities.
________
Orlando shooter: deeper hidden ties to the FBI?
by Jon Rappoport
June 13, 2016
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Power Outside The Matrix, click here.)
"…Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who researches national security law at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, told the Times, 'They're [the FBI] manufacturing terrorism cases.'" (The New Yorker, June 10, 2016, "Do FBI Stings help fight against ISIS?" by Evan Osnos)
The website Cryptogon has pieced together some interesting facts, and a quite odd "coincidence." I'm bolstering their work.
First of all, the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, changed his name in 2006. As NBC News notes:
"Records also show that he had filed a petition for a name change in 2006 from Omar Mir Seddique to Omar Mir Seddique Mateen."
Why is that important? Why is his original last name, Seddique, also spelled Siddiqui, significant? Because of a previous terrorism case in Florida, in which the FBI informant's name was Siddiqui. And because that previous case may have been one of those FBI prop-jobs, where the informant was used to falsely accuse a suspect of a terrorist act. The New Yorker (cited above) has details:
"This is not the first time that the F.B.I. has attracted criticism from national-security experts and civil-liberties groups for generating terrorism cases through sting operations and confidential informants. In 'The Imam's Curse,' published in September, I reported on a Florida family that was accused of providing 'material support' to terrorists. In that case, a father, Hafiz Khan, and two of his sons were arrested. The charges against the sons were eventually dropped, but Hafiz Khan was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. At Khan's trial, his lawyer, Khurrum Wahid, questioned the reliability of the key [FBI] informant in the case, David Mahmood Siddiqui. Wahid accused Siddiqui, who'd had periods of unemployment, of lying to authorities because his work as a confidential informant was lucrative. For his role in the case, Siddiqui had received a hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars, plus expenses. But in a subsequent interview with the Associated Press, Siddiqui stood by his testimony and motives: 'I did it for the love of my country, not for money.'"
The website Cryptogon, which pieced this whole story together, comments: "What are the odds that an FBI informant in a [previous] Florida terrorist case shares the same last name as the perpetrator of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history—also in Florida—[Omar Mateen] a lone wolf cop poser with multiple acknowledged contacts with the FBI, who was formerly listed on the terrorist watch list and associated with a suicide bomber… while holding a valid security guard license?"
Indeed.
And in case you think Siddiqui is a common last name, here is a statement from Mooseroots:
"Siddiqui is an uncommon surname in the United States. When the United States Census was taken in 2000, there were about 4,994 individuals with the last name "Siddiqui," ranking it number 6,281 for all surnames. Historically, the name has been most prevalent in the Southwest, though the name is actually most common in Hawaii. Siddiqui is least common in the southeastern states."
If for some reason the name Siddiqui throws you off, suppose the last name was, let me make something up, Graposco? A few years ago, an FBI informant in Florida, Graposco, appeared to have falsely accused a man of terrorist acts—and in 2016, another Graposco, who changed that last name to something else, killed 50 people in a Florida nightclub shooting—after having been investigated twice by the FBI? Might that coincidence grab your attention?
Again—the 2016 Orlando shooter had extensive contact with the FBI in 2013 and 2014. The FBI investigated him twice and dropped the investigations. The FBI used an informant in a previous Florida case, and that informant had the same last name as the Orlando shooter. It's quite possible the previous informant was told to give a false statement which incriminated a man for terrorist acts.
You can say this is a coincidence. Maybe it is. But it seems more than odd. Are the two Siddiqui men connected?
Was the Orlando shooter involved in some kind of FBI plan to mount a terror op that was supposed to be stopped before it went ahead, but wasn’t? Was the Orlando shooter "helped" over the edge from having "radical ideas" to committing mass murder?
I could cite a number of precedents. Here is one I reported on in 2014:
There seems to be a rule: if a terror attack takes place and the FBI investigates it, things are never what they seem.
Federal attorney Andrew C McCarthy prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing case. A review of his book, Willful Blindness, states:
"For the first time, McCarthy intimately reveals the real story behind the FBI's inability to stop the first World Trade Center bombing even though the bureau had an undercover informant in the operation—the jihadists' supposed bombmaker.
"In the first sentence of his hard-hitting account, the author sums up the lawyerly—but staggeringly incomprehensive—reason why the FBI pulled its informant out of the terrorist group even as plans were coming to a head on a major attack:
"'Think of the liability!'
"The first rule for government attorneys in counterintelligence in the 1990s was, McCarthy tells us, 'Avoid accountable failure.' Thus, when the situation demanded action, the feds copped a CYA posture, the first refuge of the bureaucrat."
That's a titanic accusation, coming from a former federal prosecutor.
Yes, the FBI had an informant inside the group that was planning the 1993 WTC bombing that eventually, on February 26, killed 6 people and injured 1042.
His name is Emad Salem, a former Egyptian Army officer. Present whereabouts unknown. Yanking Salem out of the group planning the Bombing was a devastating criminal act on the part of the FBI.
But there is more to the story.
On October 28, 1993, Ralph Blumenthal wrote a piece about Emad Salem for the New York Times: "Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast." It began:
"Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer [Emad Salem] said after the blast."
Continuing: "The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad A. Salem, should be used, the informer [Emad] said."
The FBI called the "plan" off, but left the planners to their own devices. No "harmless powder." Instead, real explosives.
The Times article goes on: "The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as in a far better position than previously known to foil the Feb. 26 bombing of New York City's tallest towers."
This is a shockingly strong opening for an article in the NY Times. It focuses on the testimony of the informant; it seems to take his side.
Several years after reporter Blumenthal wrote the above piece, I spoke with him and expressed my amazement at the revelations about the FBI—and wondered whether the Times had continued to investigate the scandal.
Blumenthal wasn't pleased, to say the least. He said I misunderstood the article.
I mentioned the fact that Emad Salem wasn't called as a prosecution witness in the 1993 WTC Bombing trial.
Of course, why would the Dept. of Justice bring Salem to the stand? Would they want him to blame the FBI for abetting the Bombing?
Again, Blumenthal told me I "didn't understand." He became angry and that was the end of the conversation.
I remember thinking: letting the bomb plot go forward…what else do you need for a criminal prosecution of the FBI?
Here is an excerpt from one of those tapes Emad Salem made when he was secretly bugging his own FBI handlers. On this phone call, he talks to his Bureau friend John. Others have claimed this is an agent named John Anticev. The conversation is taking place at some point after the 1993 WTC Bombing. The main topic is Salem's fees for services rendered as an informant. He apparently wants more money. He also wants to make sure the Bureau will pay him what they've agreed to. During the conversation, Salem suddenly talks about the bomb. His English is broken, but his meaning is clear enough. When he finishes, his Bureau handler John just moves on without directly responding.
Salem: "…we was start already building the bomb which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising supervision from the Bureau and the DA and we was all informed about it and we know that the bomb start to be built. By who? By your confidential informant. What a wonderful great case!"
According to Salem, there was a bomb, it was built under FBI and “DA” supervision, Salem himself built it, and it exploded.
Questions remain. Did Salem literally mean he built the bomb? Or was he claiming he successfully convinced others to build it? As a provocative agent for the FBI, did Salem foment the whole idea of the WTC attack and entrap those who were eventually convicted of the Bombing? Without his presence, would they have planned and carried out the assault? Was the truck bomb set off under the North Tower the only weapon? Were there other bombs? If so, who planted them?
But the role of the FBI seems to be clear enough. They aided and abetted, and at the very least, permitted the 1993 attack on the Trade Towers.
What about Omar Mateen in 2016, in Orlando?
As the LA Times, reports, the FBI investigated him on two occasions (LA Times, June 13, "Orlando terror attack live updates…"):
"While working as a courthouse guard in 2013, Mateen made 'inflammatory and contradictory' statements to co-workers about having relatives in Al Qaeda, the radical Sunni terrorist group, [FBI Director] Comey said. Mateen also claimed to be a member of Hezbollah, Lebanon's Shiite militia, and his remarks drew an 11-month FBI investigation, Comey said. Both groups oppose Islamic State.
"Comey said the FBI also briefly investigated Mateen in 2014 for allegedly watching videos by Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar Awlaki and attending the same mosque as an American who would later become a suicide bomber for Al Nusra Front in Syria — another Al Qaeda affiliate opposed to Islamic State.
"Both investigations were closed without charges."
Did the FBI just investigate the Orlando shooter? Or did they in some way enlist him in an operation?
Is it merely a terrible mistake that enabled the shooter to work nine years for G4S, the world’s "biggest guarding company” and one of the biggest contractors to the DHS, as Bloomberg News states? Is it merely a terrible mistake that G4S was aware the FBI was investigating the shooter in 2013 and did nothing about it?
Or did some federal group intervene and tell all parties to leave the shooter alone and in place—because he was part of an operation?
Jon Rappoport
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.