International counter-terrorism activities of the CIA
For example, there are reports that 15 cargo ships are linked to al-Qaeda,[7] whose activities at port might draw the attention of security officials, or even low-level dockworkers or craftsmen.For example, an FBI official testified with regard to the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which took place so closely in time that the terrorist teams can reasonably be assumed to have coordinated their operations in near real-time.More success has come from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), which are hard to see and hear, to do such things as follow cars, or loiter above a building, photographic traffic in and out, often with low-light or infrared sensors that work in apparent darkness.The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has the power to "freeze" the accounts of organizations suspected of funding terrorist activities.[20] While the initial implementation, the Bin Laden Issue Station, did not work well, there has been an Intelligence Community effort to avoid the problems of stovepiping, especially where it involves lack of communication between analysts and operators.The 1995 guidelines must be rescinded immediately, and replaced with new guidelines that balance concerns about human rights behavior and law breaking with the need for flexibility to take advantage of opportunities to gather information on terrorist activities, as required by law.Under Porter Goss, for a variety of reasons, including innovation, the CIA has proposed moving its National Resources Division, concerned with issues in the U.S., to Denver, letting it work more freely than under Headquarters bureaucracy.In April 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 30[26] dealing with responses to armed attacks on U.S. citizens or assets.The NSDD created a coordinating body, the Interdepartmental Group on Terrorism, to develop and assign to various executive agencies specific responsibilities when terrorist incidents occurred.Supporting the SSG was a Terrorist Incident Working Group with representatives from the Departments of State and Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence, the FBI, FEMA, and the National Security Staff.In 1984 Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden set up an organization known as the Office of Services in Peshawar, Pakistan, to coordinate and finance the "Afghan Arabs", as the volunteers became known.Blowback (referring to operations launched against an enemy which eventually hurt their originators) into the United States may have come from a pipeline, from Brooklyn, New York, to Peshawar, Pakistan, the gateway to joining the Afghan mujahedin."Cold warriors" in the CIA and US State Department looked favorably on these efforts, and considered that they should be formally endorsed and expanded, perhaps along the lines of the international brigades of the Spanish Civil War.[36] Arrested in the US for the 1998 embassy bombings, was a former Egyptian soldier named Ali Mohamed (sometimes called "al-Amriki", "the American"), who is alleged to have provided training and assistance to Bin Laden's operatives.Another individual associated with the Brooklyn center was the "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman, a leading recruiter of mujaheddin, who obtained US entry visas with the help of the CIA in 1987 and 1990.[39] Congressional testimony from then-DCI George Tenet speaks of knowledge and analysis of Bin Laden, from his early years as a terrorist financier to his leadership of a worldwide network of terrorism based in Afghanistan.In the early 1990s, Ali Mohamed, a former United States Army Special Forces supply sergeant, returned to Afghanistan, where he gave training in al-Qaeda camps.In a PBS interview in October 2001, former Clinton-era CIA Director James Woolsey argued a supposed link between Ramzi Youssef and the Iraqi intelligence services.FBI special agent Dan Coleman (who together with his partner Jack Cloonan had been "seconded" to the Bin Laden Station) called him Qaeda's "Rosetta Stone".Once the Plan was finalized, the Agency created a "Qaeda cell" (whose functions overlapped those of the CTC's Bin Laden unit) to give operational leadership to the effort.)[40] Al Qaeda operated as an organization in more than sixty countries, the CIA's Counterterrorist Center calculated by late 1999 [a figure that was to help underpin the "War On Terror" two years later].On October 12, 2000, three suicide bombers detonated a skiff packed with explosives alongside the American Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Cole, which was docked in Aden Harbor, Yemen.However, Kie Fallis at the Defense Intelligence Agency, from "data mining and analysis", had "predicted" in early autumn 2000 an al-Qaeda attack by an explosives-laden small boat against a US warship.[55][56] In 2000 the CIA and USAF jointly ran a series of flights over Afghanistan with a small remote-controlled reconnaissance drone, the Predator; they obtained probable photos of Bin Laden.This discussion will not address the controversial issue of illegal combatants, but, following Addicott's reasoning, assumes that violence, in defense to an attack, is legal under Article 51 of the UN Charter."[citation needed] Black and others became advocates of arming the Predator with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles to try to kill Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, but there were both legal and technical issues.If the Cabinet wanted to empower the CIA to field a lethal drone, he said, "they should do so with their eyes wide open, fully aware of the potential fallout if there were a controversial or mistaken strike".His response came in a briefing held on September 15, 2001, where he presented the Worldwide Attack Matrix, a classified document describing covert CIA anti-terror operations in eighty countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.On November 5, 2002, newspapers reported that al-Qaeda operatives in a car travelling through Yemen had been killed by a missile launched from a CIA-controlled Predator drone (a medium-altitude, remote-controlled aircraft).[78] In July 2008, Abu Khabab al-Masri, suspected leader of al-Qaeda's chemical and biological weapons efforts, was killed in an attack by U.S. drone-launched missiles on a house in South Waziristan in Pakistan.[84] In January 2009, Usama al-Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, alleged orchestrators of the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, were killed in a Predator strike in northern Pakistan.
Central Intelligence AgencyUnited States Intelligence CommunityNational Counterterrorism CenterDepartment of Justicecounterterrorism centerNational Security Act of 1947Directorate of OperationsHUMINTUnited States Special Operations Commanddirect military actionUnited States Coast GuardWar on TerrorHuman rights violations by the CIASeptember 11, 2001 attacksBasque group ETAFederal Research DivisionCongressional Research ServiceLibrary of Congressweapons of mass destructionnon-official coverSignals intelligenceNational Security Agencymilitary communicationscountersurveillanceencryptedNational Security Archivemeasurement and signature intelligence1998 United States embassy bombingsEgyptian Islamic Jihadimagery intelligenceunmanned aerial vehiclesMQ-1 PredatorAfghanistanFinancial intelligenceTreasury DepartmentOffice of Foreign Assets Controlfunding terrorist activitiesInformal value transfer systemshawalaCenter for Defense InformationAlexander HaigNational Reconnaissance OfficeNational Geospatial-Intelligence AgencyFinancial Crimes Enforcement NetworkDepartment of the TreasuryBin Laden Issue StationstovepipingFederal Bureau of InvestigationSeptember 11 attacksPorter GossNational Resources DivisionCounterterrorist Intelligence CenterForeign Broadcast Information ServiceOrlando LetelierExecutive Order (EO) 11905President Jimmy CarterEO 12036EO 12333Bob Barrseized by the Red Brigades and later killedseizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca1983 Beirut barracks bombingRonald ReaganCaspar WeinbergerRules of engagementWilliam BuckleyState DepartmentOperation Cycloneal-Qaedafought the Sovietspuppet regimes in AfghanistanAbdullah AzzamOsama bin LadenOffice of ServicesPeshawar, PakistanAfghan ArabsAl-KhifahCounterterrorist CenterBlowbackAl Kifah Refugee CenterMaktab al-KhidamatCold warriorsinternational brigadesMilton BeardenAli MohamedUnited States Army Special ForcesFort BraggOmar Abdel-RahmanCIA–al-Qaeda controversyJamal al-FadlGeorge TenetAyman al-Zawahiri1998 bombings of US embassies in AfricaWorld Trade Center was bombedDirector of Central IntelligenceJames WoolseyRamzi YoussefPeter L. BergenSaddam HusseinLaurie MylroieAmerican Enterprise InstituteAum Shinrikyoattacked Japanese civilians with sarin gasattack on the Khobar TowersMichael ScheuerRosetta StoneRevolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)National Liberation Army (ELN)Cofer BlackBin Laden unitCharles E. AllenMoro Islamic Liberation OrganizationAbu SayyafPhilippinesUSS Cole bombingArleigh Burke-class destroyerUSS ColeDefense Intelligence AgencyAble DangerPredatorAhmed Shah MassoudTargeted killingDisposition MatrixExecutive Ordersassassinationsillegal combatants