The story comes from The Long War Journal.
Egypt requests release of al Qaeda explosives expert
The Egyptian government has requested the release of a top al Qaeda explosives expert from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, according to Agence France Presse and Reuters.
Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al Sawah, a Guantanamo detainee since 2002, became one of the US government's most prolific sources during his time in custody, a leaked Sept. 30, 2008 Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) memo shows. So prolific, in fact, that JTF-GTMO officials recommended that al Sawah be transferred out of the Defense Department's control even though he had compiled an extensive dossier as a jihadist in Bosnia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
At first, al Sawah was hostile to Guantanamo personnel, according to the leaked JTF-GTMO memo. But he became "compliant" and, as of 2008, continued "to be a highly prolific source," who "has provided invaluable intelligence regarding explosives, al Qaeda, affiliated entities and their activities."
"If released," JTF-GTMO surmised, al Sawah "will possibly reestablish extremist associations, but is unlikely to do so as his cooperation with the US government may serve to identify detainee as a target for revenge by those associates."
A task force set up by President Obama in early 2009 disagreed with JTF-GTMO's recommendation. The task force determined, according to an account by the Washington Post's Peter Finn, that al Sawah was "owed no special treatment" even though he had cooperated with US officials.
"Great pride" in explosives expertise
Al Sawah, who was given the internment serial number (ISN) 535, identified numerous al Qaeda operatives during his Guantanamo interrogations. But he also showed authorities how he had designed ingenious explosive devices capable of taking down a commercial airliner, or severly damaging a US naval ship. Al Sawah takes "takes great pride in his bomb making achievements," JTF-GTMO found, and he liked to brag about two of his accomplishments in particular.
Al Sawah told authorities at Guantanamo that the director of Tarnak Farms, an elite al Qaeda training facility, tasked him with designing "a new way to use explosives" in the summer of 2001. Al Sawah came up with "a shoe-bomb prototype that could be used to bring down a commercial airliner in flight," the JTF-GTMO file reads. When US officials investigated al Sawah's description of this prototype they found it "technically matches the design of the shoe-bomb used by failed suicide operative Richard Reid" in Dec. 2001.
Senior al Qaeda commander Saif al Adel asked al Sawah to design another brilliant explosives device as well. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, al Adel figured that American warships would make their way for Pakistan's harbors. So, according to the JTF-GTMO file, al Sawah "designed and built four magnetic limpet mines that could be attached to the underside of a metal-hulled ship and detonated, thereby sinking the ship." Al Sawah told authorities that the mines "could be attached to the hull of a ship with a magnet delivered by swimmers or scuba divers or could be floated near the surface of the water and detonated with the remote."
At first, US officials did not believe that al Sawah was as skilled as he claimed to be. Al Sawah countered their skepticism by showing them drawings of his designs, including the magnetized limpet mines. As the Washington Post first reported, the US Navy decided to test al Sawah's designs.
Al Sawah wasn't all bluster; his designs worked.
Al Sawah's al Qaeda pedigree likely explains, at least in part, his bomb-making prowess. The JTF-GTMO file reveals that al Sawah claimed he was trained by another al Qaeda explosives expert known as Abd al Rahman al Muhajir, who was one of the most wanted terrorists on the planet until his demise 2006.
Al Muhajir, who was otherwise known as Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah, was wanted for his role in al Qaeda's Aug. 1998 embassy bombings, the Oct. 2000 attack on the USS Cole, as well as for training Somali tribesmen targeting US forces in the early 1990s. Al Sawah also said that Saif al Adel had al Muhajir train the terrorists who assassinated Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud on Sept. 9. 2011. That attack was a prelude to al Qaeda's devastation inside the US two days later. Massoud's assassins posed as journalists and used cleverly-designed bombs that were disguised to look like video cameras.
In other words, al Sawah learned from one of al Qaeda's best explosives experts.
Possible foreknowledge of Sept. 11 attacks
Al Sawah's JTF-GTMO file reveals that he interacted with a constellation of other senior al Qaeda operatives prior to his capture. This includes, according to al Sawah's own testimony, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM).
Al Sawah told the Americans that KSM "supplied money and arms" to his "fighting unit in Bosnia" in the 1990s. Al Sawah also said that he saw KSM "on several occasions between 1995 and 1999 when [KSM] came to Bosnia to recruit fighters to train and help train other fighters in Afghanistan." KSM "was a close associate" of senior al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, al Sawah added, but he "did not know" if KSM had ever traveled to Afghanistan.
On that last point, JTF-GTMO analysts concluded that al Sawah was being deliberately evasive. While he was a "prolific" source on many topics, he still wanted to mask parts of his career. It is "unlikely" al Sawah was unaware of KSM's "extensive presence in Afghanistan," the Americans concluded. Al Sawah told authorities that he wanted to leave Afghanistan for Bosnia prior to Sept. 11, 2001 because he heard bin Laden "was planning an attack against the US."
KSM himself may have told al Sawah about the impending attacks, JTF-GTMO concluded, and al Sawah may have been simply trying to "disassociate himself" from KSM, especially after the Sept. 11 mastermind had been transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.
KSM was not the only Sept. 11 conspirator al Sawah had ties to either. During a Sept. 11, 2002 raid on an al Qaeda safe house in Karachi, Pakistan, al Sawah's "personal identification documents, including his Bosnian passport," were found. Also captured during the raid was Ramzi Binalshibh -- al Qaeda's
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