Reply #10: Worth repeating: ISI HEAD ORDERED $100,000 SENT TO MOHAMMED ATTA!

[robertpaulsen]

October 7, 2001: ISI Director Replaced at US Urging; Role in Funding 9/11 Plot Is One Explanation ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed is replaced in the face of US pressure after links are discovered between him, Saeed Sheikh, and the funding of the 9/11 attacks. Mahmood instructed Saeed to transfer $100,000 into hijacker Mohamed Atta’s bank account prior to 9/11. This is according to Indian intelligence, which claims the FBI has privately confirmed the story. The story is not widely reported in Western countries, though it makes the Wall Street Journal. It is reported in Pakistan as well. The Northern Alliance also repeats the claim in late October. In Western countries, the usual explanation is that Mahmood is fired for being too close to the Taliban. The Times of India reports that Indian intelligence helped the FBI discover the link, and says, “A direct link between the ISI and the WTC attack could have enormous repercussions. The US cannot but suspect whether or not there were other senior Pakistani Army commanders who were in the know of things. Evidence of a larger conspiracy could shake US confidence in Pakistan’s ability to participate in the anti-terrorism coalition.” There is evidence some ISI officers may have known of a plan to destroy the WTC as early as July 1999. Two other ISI leaders, Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan and Lt. Gen. Muzaffar Usmani, are sidelined on the same day as Mahmood. Saeed had been working under Khan. The firings are said to have purged the ISI of its fundamentalists. However, according to one diplomat, “To remove the top two or three doesn’t matter at all. The philosophy remains. ... a parallel government of its own. If you go through the officer list, almost all of the ISI regulars would say, of the Taliban, ‘They are my boys.’” It is believed Mahmood has been living under virtual house arrest in Pakistan (which would seem to imply more than just a difference of opinion over the Taliban), but no charges have been brought against him, and there is no evidence the US has asked to question him. He also has refused to speak to reporters since being fired , and outside India and Pakistan, the story has only been mentioned infrequently in the media since. He will reemerge as a businessman in 2003, but still will not speak to the media (see July 2003).
Entity Tags: Mahmood Ahmed, Saeed Sheikh, Mohammed Aziz Khan, Muzaffar Usmani, Mohamed Atta, Federal Bureau of Investigation, India, Northern Alliance, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, World Trade Center, Taliban

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&the_isi:_a_more_detailed_look=mahmoodAhmed

Yes, we need ISI to fight the War on Terror, but in ways that Musharref is not completely forthright about. Then again, neither was the 9/11 Commission, which omitted this fact from its report.