'1986: Al-Qaeda Figures Establish First US Base in Arizona'In 1986, Maktab al-Khidamat (a.k.a. Al-Kifah),
the precursor organization to al-Qaeda, opens its first branch in the US at the Islamic Center of Tucson, in Tucson, Arizona. Counterterrorism expert Rita Katz will later call the Islamic Center,
“basically, the first cell of al-Qaeda in the United States; that is where it all started.” The organization’s journal, Al Jihad (Holy War), is initially distributed in the US from there. Other branches around the US soon follow (see 1985-1989).
* A number of important future al-Qaeda figures are connected to the Tucson branch in the 1980s and into the early 1990s, including:
* Mohammed Loay Bayazid, one of the founders of al-Qaeda two years later.
* Wael Hamza Julaidan, another founder of al-Qaeda, and a Saudi multimillionaire. He was president of the Islamic Center starting in 1983 and leaves the US around 1986.
* Wadih El-Hage, bin Laden’s future personal secretary, who will later be convicted for a role in the 1998 US embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998).
* Mubarak al Duri, al-Qaeda’s chief agent attempting to purchase weapons of mass destruction.
Throughout the 1980s, the mosque provides money, support, and fighters to the mujaheddin fighting in Afghanistan. Around 1991, future 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour will move to Arizona for the first time (see October 3, 1991-February 1992) and he will spend much of the rest of the decade in the state. He will briefly live in Tucson, but his ties to earlier al-Qaeda connections there remain elusive.
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a1986alkifaharizona Arizona Was Home to bin Laden ''Sleeper Cell''Arizona appears to have been the home of a "sleeper cell" of Osama bin Laden's worldwide terrorist organization, with a select group of operatives living quietly in bland apartment complexes and obtaining flight training in preparation for the Sept. 11 attacks.
The organization's known history in the state goes back nine years and scholars say the activities of at least three part-time Arizona residents fits the pattern of the al-Qaeda terrorist group."We can only speculate at this point, but I'm convinced the FBI is operating under the assumption that
Arizona was host to an al-Qaeda cell," said Jack Williams, a professor of law at Georgia State University who has studied the group's financing methods.
Among the suspects:
* Lotfi Raissi, a onetime resident of the Wickertree Apartments in North
Phoenix, was arrested in England this week. British prosecutors say the Algerian pilot is
a mid-level player in the Al-Qaeda organization who gave flight training to four of the terrorists in Arizona.*
Hani Hanjoor, identified by the FBI as a hijacker who died when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, lived in Tucson and Phoenix and took flight-training courses in
Scottsdale. Authorities say they have a videotape of Hanjoor with Raissi on a flight from Phoenix to Las Vegas in June.
*
Nawaf Al-Hazmi, a Saudi national who was aboard the same flight, was a Hanjoor associate and possibly took flight-training in Arizona. FBI agents discovered a cashier's check for a Phoenix-area flight school in his vehicle after the terrorist attack.
*
Khalid Almihdhar lived with Hanjoor in San Diego, and reportedly attended a flight school in Arizona. Investigators told the Washington Post they are "confident" Almihdhar is a member of the al-Qaeda network.
*
Wadih El-Hage, a former Tucson resident and bin Laden lieutenant, was imprisoned in connection with the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania. Years earlier, he engineered the purchase of a military surplus jet from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and may have had a role in the assassination of the leader of a controversial Islamic sect in Tucson in 1990.
*
Unnamed "henchmen" to bin Laden, who reportedly attempted to buy a Boeing 727 jetliner in Arizona just six months before the Sept. 11 hijackings. A law enforcement official told the New York Post the men had "kicked the tires" of some used airplanes in Denver and Tucson, but ultimately did not make a purchase.
http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/2001/arizonarepublic092801.html This is another racist distraction from Republicans who like to target patsies rather than go after the perps they are in bed with(Which Arizonans let Saudi Al-Qaeda terrorists into the USA and protected them when they were waging a terror war against the Soviets in our name??? My guess is many are probably Republicans. And why exactly is Saudi Arabia our great ally when all of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis???).
Hey Arizona, how about you go after the PERPS this time... those employers hiring the illegals to be used as indentured servants instead of going after families trying to make a living???