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Monday, May 18, 2009
Did Iran and Al Qaeda Destroy TWA 800?
After a terrorist bomb disintegrated Pan American Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, scattering the bodies of 259 passengers and crew members across the bleak, snowy landscape of Lockerbie, Scotland, the Government drew up strict new regulations to protect air travelers.
Yet as rescue workers continued yesterday to search the waters off Long Island for the 230 people aboard T.W.A. Flight 800, which blew apart Wednesday night, Federal investigators were increasingly convinced that this plane, too, was destroyed by an explosive device.
-John Kifner, The New York Times, July 19, 1996
There is reason to believe that captured Al Qaeda terrorist commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, may have confessed to the biggest mass murder in American history prior to 9/11--the destruction of TWA Flight 800, which was blown out of the sky off the coast of Long Island on July 17, 1996--and that both the Bush and Obama administrations have hidden this part of his confession from the public in order to avoid a confrontation with Iran.
The original version of KSM's statement included a completely redacted third paragraph, spurring speculation about its content. The U.S. Defense Department then released a second version of the transcript in which the terrorist mastermind says in Paragraph 3: "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl."
In both versions, the Kuwaiti-born killer, who was captured in 2003 in Pakistan, and subsequently subjected by the CIA to waterboarding and other "extreme interrogation" techniques, admits responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia. He also says he was responsible for planning and financing a "second wave" of attacks that targeted the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the Sears Towers in Chicago, the Plaza Bank in Washington State and the Empire State Building in New York.
Click here for the actual, original document. Paragraph 3 is redacted. Above it, in Paragraph 2, the declaration reads: "I was responsible for the 9/l11 operation, from A to Z."
NY to Rome via Paris
TWA Flight 800 was a scheduled passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York to Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome, Italy, via Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) in Paris, France.
Shortly after takeoff, the plane exploded in mid-air and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near New York's Long Island.
All 230 people on board--two pilots, two flight engineers, 14 flight attendants, and 212 passengers--were killed and the aircraft was destroyed.
After a long investigation, federal authorities blamed mechanical failure for the destruction of the Boeing 747-100 jetliner. But many aviation experts, intelligence analysts, and eyewitnesses have questioned the official explanation, reached in 2000, that the aircraft was destroyed by an explosion in its center fuel tank, likely caused by a spark from a wiring short-circuit.
China Confidential analysts suspect the plane was downed by a joint Iranian-Al Qaeda operation, and that KSM's redacted statement may indicate as much.
China Confidential analysts also suspect the jumbo jetliner was attacked on July 17--Iraqi national liberation day--in order to pin blame on the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein, with which Iran had fought an eight-year war that cost a million Iranian lives.
The Athens Connection
The airplane has an unusual pre-crash history. On the day of the explosion, it departed Athens, Greece, as TWA Flight 881, and arrived at the gate at JFK at about 4:38 PM. Athens is Europe's most unsafe and anti-American airport--heavily infiltrated by terrorists and extremists--the place where Palestinian terrorists planted a bomb in the 1970s that obliterated a TWA passenger plane following its scheduled stop en route from Tel Aviv to New York.
Upon the arrival at JFK of Flight 881, there was a crew change, and the aircraft was refueled. In charge of the crew that evening was Captain Steven Snyder, a veteran of more than 17,000 flying hours.
As TWA Flight 800, the plane was scheduled to depart JFK for CDG at around 7:00 PM. But the flight was delayed for just over an hour due to a disabled piece of ground equipment and a passenger/baggage mismatch. After confirmation that the owner of the baggage in question was on board, the flight crew prepared for departure, and the aircraft pushed back from the gate at about 8:00 PM.
Flight 800 blew up about 30 minutes later, some 11 1/2 minutes after takeoff, at 13,700 feet. The cockpit voice recorder contained a split-second noise, after which, the on-board power system failed--and the plane was decapitated. In an accident unlike any other in aviation history, the 747 broke apart. The headless plane pitched, and at approximately 8,000 feet, it exploded into a fireball and plummeted into the ocean.
A Year in Iran
It was subsequently learned that the jetliner was operated by TWA for all but one of its nearly 25 years in service. For exactly one year, in the mid-1970s, the plane belonged to the Imperial Iranian Air Force--then a staunch U.S. ally.
It was during the airplane's 12-month stint in the Iranian military, on April 26, 1976, that another TWA 747 owned by Iran and used as a cargo plane was destroyed near Madrid in a midair explosion much like the one that destroyed Flight 800. The official cause was "lightning strike," but a fuel tank explosion was suspected.
It was the only other time a 747--considered exceptionally reliable--has burst into flames in midair.
Did Islamist/left-wing terrorists blow up the Iranian-owned 747?
Possibly. A violent, Islamist underground led by the Ayatollah Khomeini from his exiled headquarters in Najaf, Iraq, was already working with radical Marxist groups to topple Iran's modernizing, pro-American monarch, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
Even if the 1976 cargo plane explosion was in fact accidental and not an act of terrorism, Iran's terrorist-sponsoring leaders could have drawn on in-depth knowledge of the TWA jetliner that became Flight 800 to develop a new kind of bomb or method of aerial sabotage.
Prior Warnings
There were several warnings at least two weeks before TWA 800 blew up that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps was planning an attack on an American airliner and that the targeted flight would originate in Athens.
The Clinton administration denied it had received warnings prior to the plane's destruction.
Not for nothing did U.S. Senator John Kerry, Democrat, on two occasions on national television refer to the destruction of TWA 800 as a "terrorist act."
Kerry was almost certainly aware that the CIA had asked Israel's Mossad to check the Athens-New York passenger list of TWA Flight 800, and that the Israelis had warned U.S. Intelligence before the disaster that an American aircraft would be the target of "sabotage or hijacking" by Islamic extremists. The CIA is believed to have given Mossad the passenger list of the TWA plane from Athens to New York and asked that it check the passengers' backgrounds to reveal if one of them had connections to a terrorist group. There are credible reports that Israel provided the U.S. with evidence of a serious threat.
On July 20, 1996, the London-based, pan-Arab newspaper, Al Hayat, published an analysis of the statement sent to the newspaper by the "Islamic Change Movement--Jihad Wing" on the eve of the Flight 800 disaster. In recent years, U.S. media have generally downplayed evidence of possible terrorist involvement in Flight 800. Experts who call attention to Shiite Iran's history of conspiring and cooperating with Sunni Al Qaeda are typically ridiculed, even though it is well known in Washington that between eight and 10 of the 14 "muscle" hijackers on 9/11—those involved in gaining control of the four aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers—passed through Iran from October 2000 to February 2001.
It is also well known in Washington that Islamist Iran had a history of allowing Al Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. The practice started in October 2000, with Iranian officials instructing their border guards not to put stamps in the passports of Al-Qaeda personnel and to otherwise facilitate their travel across the frontier.
After Al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, killing 17 American sailors, Iranian officials approached the terrorist group's senior leadership--including Osama Binladen--and proposed a collaborative relationship in future attacks on the U.S.
After Al Qaeda and the Taliban were driven from Afghanistan in 2001, one of two known Al Qaeda leadership councils met regularly in eastern Iran while the other council met in Pakistan. The organization's minister of propaganda, Suleiman Abu Ghaith, and one of Osama Binladen's sons, Saad bin Laden, are believed to have spent time at a military base near Tehran called Lavizan; a northern suburb of Tehran called Chalous; an important holy city, Mashod; and a border town near Afghanistan called Zabul.
The PFLP and TWA 841
About the TWA airliner that was blown up after taking off from Athens: on September 8, 1974, TWA Flight 841 departed Tel Aviv, Israel en route to JFK with stops scheduled for the Greek capital and Rome, Italy. After a 68 minute stop in Athens, the flight departed for Rome. But radio contact was lost 18 minutes after takeoff. The jet crashed into the Ionian Sea, and all 79 passengers and nine crew members were killed.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of the crash was the detonation of an explosive device within the cargo compartment of the aircraft.
A similar device may have brought down another forgotten victim of Palestinian terror four years earlier--Swissair Flight SR330, a regularly scheduled flight from Zurich International Airport to Tel Aviv.
On February 21, 1970, the plane was flying on the route with 38 passengers and nine crew. A bomb detonated in the aft cargo compartment of the aircraft about nine minutes after take-off. It crashed a short time later near Zurich. There were no survivors.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility for that bombing. A barometric triggered IED (improvised explosive device) had been used.
On the same day, a bomb exploded aboard a Vienna-bound Caravelle after takeoff from Frankfurt. The jetliner landed safely.
The Palestinians never claimed credit for the TWA bombing, though the airline and the U.S. government were sure they were responsible for the atrocity.
Months before the attack, TWA was warned by U.S. officials that since it was the only US carrier in those days that flew to Israel, the airline was the number one target for Palestinian terrorists after Israel's national carrier, El Al, which, since a 1968 PFLP hijacking that started the aerial terror wave, had achieved a well deserved reputation as the world's most secure airline.
The IED that destroyed TWA Flight 841 was installed in Athens.
Twenty-two years later, according to some terrorism experts, Revolutionary Guard operatives of Iran may have used a more sophisticated IED to destroy TWA Flight 800.
POSTSCRIPT: Incredibly, one of the men responsible for the 1974 TWA bombing--convicted Black September car bomber Khalid Al-Jawary--was released this year from a U.S. prison after serving only half of a 30-year sentence. He received time off for good behavior, and was deported to Sudan.
Khalid Al-Jawary was let go 36 years after he placed bombs in two cars on New York City's Fifth Avenue and a third at Kennedy Airport that were timed to coincide with the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. The bombs did not detonate, but Al-Jawary was convicted of the crime in 1993.
He left the United States on February 26 and arrived Tuesday in Sudan, after Algeria changed its mind about accepting him. He had wanted to go to Jordan, where his family lives, but Jordan apparently did not agree to accept him.
Al-Jawary has dual citizenship in Jordan and Iraq.
He has refused to admit his involvement in any other terrorist incidents, but an AP investigation found that Al-Jawary may have been involved in a lethal letter-bombing campaign in addition to the bombing of TWA 841.
In fact, intelligence experts know Al-Jawary was involved in the TWA bombing.
His release was an early sign that the Obama administration had decided to appease Arab and Islamist terrorists.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Opinion: How to Bring Peace to Korean Peninsula
By W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz
The United Nations Security Council adopted a statement condemning the recent rocket launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). This in turn has provoked the DPRK to declare that it would restart its nuclear program. This is likely to bring sanctions against Poyongyang, which in turn could make it more aggressive.
If that were to happen, the cycle of confrontation between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the DPRK will continue to be reinforced. But this is a false track based on mutual suspicion and fear. The right one is exactly the opposite.
When Korea was divided in 1948, there were three important factors or variables, which have now changed. First, many economies were on the rise. Second, there were no noticeable environment problems. Third, the communist ideology was still spreading. Today, that global picture has changed completely. We now face a global economic crisis that is seriously hurting many countries. There is a grave poverty problem all over the world. Every second, people are dying because of malnutrition. We are confronted with dire environmental challenges such as pollution, shortage of water and global warming. There is a growing understanding that our natural resources are limited and that the environment pays a high price for development. Finally, we agree on most things than disagree.
In the period following the 1948 division and the subsequent Korean War, the DPRK and the ROK both would define their policies toward one another on the basis of the external circumstances in which they existed. But now since the Berlin Wall has come down, the Soviet Union has disintegrated,it is likely that the DPRK would soften its ideological stance. Besides, there are urgent economic and environmental problems that the DPRK and the ROK both need to address and resolve. Thus it is the right time for both countries to review their policies and attitudes toward one another .
A Lesson from Germany
The unification of Germany can teach a lesson. It shows how high the price of a country's unification really is. Despite the German capital having being moved from Bonn in West Germany to Berlin in the East and billions of euros injected into the eastern part of the country, many west Germans believe east Germans are still unlike them in thoughts, habits and behavior. After living for many years under two different political systems, people of a reunited Germany are like the citizens of two different countries.
Likewise, people in the DPRK today are certainly different from their brethren in the ROK in many ways. These differences, combined with realist political thinking, are strong enough to remove the pressure for unification.
Since the global ideological confrontation has lost its force, the idea that one side could impose its political system on another should be given up. The DPRK and the ROK should recognize themselves as two independent political identities, enter into normal diplomatic relationships, respect their ideological differences and treat one another as partners in cooperation rather than enemies.
Today, more than ever, humanity needs to cooperate. In this world of acute economic pressures and environmental challenges, it is an act of extravagance to divert a country's resources to the development of expensive means of destruction.
Since the DPRK and the ROK live in a state of mutual suspicion, which contributes to their large military spending, it is high time they began building relations of trust on the basis of mutual recognition. They should gradually develop different forms of transnational cooperation such as cultural and educational exchange programs between schools and universities. Fear will wither away with the growth of trust and increase in contacts.
To break the cycle of confrontation, the two sides have to establish a genuine desire to cooperate on the basis of mutual recognition. Instead of finding less or more subtle ways of criticizing and insulting one another, they should both find the courage to engage in a friendly gesture despite their past. They must realize that their existing relations will take them on a road to nowhere, and that it is time they find the right way.
The author is associate professor and international scholar with the School of International Studies, Kyung Hee University, ROK. His article was originally published byChina Daily.
The United Nations Security Council adopted a statement condemning the recent rocket launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). This in turn has provoked the DPRK to declare that it would restart its nuclear program. This is likely to bring sanctions against Poyongyang, which in turn could make it more aggressive.
If that were to happen, the cycle of confrontation between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the DPRK will continue to be reinforced. But this is a false track based on mutual suspicion and fear. The right one is exactly the opposite.
When Korea was divided in 1948, there were three important factors or variables, which have now changed. First, many economies were on the rise. Second, there were no noticeable environment problems. Third, the communist ideology was still spreading. Today, that global picture has changed completely. We now face a global economic crisis that is seriously hurting many countries. There is a grave poverty problem all over the world. Every second, people are dying because of malnutrition. We are confronted with dire environmental challenges such as pollution, shortage of water and global warming. There is a growing understanding that our natural resources are limited and that the environment pays a high price for development. Finally, we agree on most things than disagree.
In the period following the 1948 division and the subsequent Korean War, the DPRK and the ROK both would define their policies toward one another on the basis of the external circumstances in which they existed. But now since the Berlin Wall has come down, the Soviet Union has disintegrated,it is likely that the DPRK would soften its ideological stance. Besides, there are urgent economic and environmental problems that the DPRK and the ROK both need to address and resolve. Thus it is the right time for both countries to review their policies and attitudes toward one another .
A Lesson from Germany
The unification of Germany can teach a lesson. It shows how high the price of a country's unification really is. Despite the German capital having being moved from Bonn in West Germany to Berlin in the East and billions of euros injected into the eastern part of the country, many west Germans believe east Germans are still unlike them in thoughts, habits and behavior. After living for many years under two different political systems, people of a reunited Germany are like the citizens of two different countries.
Likewise, people in the DPRK today are certainly different from their brethren in the ROK in many ways. These differences, combined with realist political thinking, are strong enough to remove the pressure for unification.
Since the global ideological confrontation has lost its force, the idea that one side could impose its political system on another should be given up. The DPRK and the ROK should recognize themselves as two independent political identities, enter into normal diplomatic relationships, respect their ideological differences and treat one another as partners in cooperation rather than enemies.
Today, more than ever, humanity needs to cooperate. In this world of acute economic pressures and environmental challenges, it is an act of extravagance to divert a country's resources to the development of expensive means of destruction.
Since the DPRK and the ROK live in a state of mutual suspicion, which contributes to their large military spending, it is high time they began building relations of trust on the basis of mutual recognition. They should gradually develop different forms of transnational cooperation such as cultural and educational exchange programs between schools and universities. Fear will wither away with the growth of trust and increase in contacts.
To break the cycle of confrontation, the two sides have to establish a genuine desire to cooperate on the basis of mutual recognition. Instead of finding less or more subtle ways of criticizing and insulting one another, they should both find the courage to engage in a friendly gesture despite their past. They must realize that their existing relations will take them on a road to nowhere, and that it is time they find the right way.
The author is associate professor and international scholar with the School of International Studies, Kyung Hee University, ROK. His article was originally published byChina Daily.
Root Causes: Recalling Carter's Catastrophic Betrayal of an Ally as Obama Appeases Iran
History worth remembering as Barack Obama prepares to appease the atomic ayatollahs and abandon America's strategic ally, Israel....
Betrayal of an AllyIn 1969, the Shah of Iran, a modernizing monarch and loyal American ally, sent one of 73 Apollo 11 Goodwill Messages to NASA for the historic first lunar landing. The message, which still rests on the lunar surface, says, in part: "We pray the Almighty God to guide mankind towards ever increasing success in the establishment of culture, knowledge and human civilization."
10 years later, the Shah was a homeless refugee, wandering from country to country in his second and final exile.
After decades in power, he had been betrayed by the United States, stabbed in the back by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who threw him under the Islamist bus in a craven attempt to jump aboard.
The craven Carter would not even allow the Shah to be treated in the U.S. for pancreatic cancer. After stops in Egypt, the Bahamas and Mexico, the President, at the request of David Rockefeller reluctantly allowed the Shah into the U.S. for medical treatment. The Iranian regime, which had come to power with Carter's help, demanded the return of the Shah to stand trial; the U.S. refused to turn him over but asked him to leave the country. He left the U.S. on December 15, 1979, and lived for a short time in Panama before accepting an offer of permanent asylum from Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat. The Shah returned to Egypt in March 1980 where he received urgent medical treatment but nevertheless died from complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma on July 27, 1980 at the age of 60. Egyptian President Sadat gave the Shah a state funeral.
Islamist Payback
The Shah's death came nearly one year after Iran's maass murdering mullahs repaid Carter for his kindness toward them and cruelty toward the Shah--with a kick in the teeth.
On 4 November 1979 a group of so-called students--led by Revolutionary Guard members--stormed the United States embassy in Tehran taking dozens of U.S. staff hostage. The operation was sanctioned at the summit of Iran's leadership.
Thousands of other protesters pressed around the compound, responding to a call by the country's new leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, to attack U.S. and Israeli interests.
Of the 90 people in the compound, six Americans managed to escape to other embassies. Other non-U.S. citizens were released. But 66 were captured, including three seized at the Foreign Ministry.
Jimmy Carter had no idea how to respond. At one point, his chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan recalled, Carter sat down to write a letter to Khomeini. "If Khomeini is the religious leader he purports to be, Carter told Jordan, "I don't see how he can condone the holding of our people."
The episode reached a climax when, after failed attempts to negotiate a release, the U.S. military attempted a rescue operation, Operation Eagle Claw, on April 24, 1980, which resulted in an aborted mission, the crash of two aircraft and the deaths of eight American service members and one Iranian civilian.
The humiliating hostage crisis ended with the signing of the Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19, 1981. The hostages were formally released into U.S. custody the following day, after 444 days in captivity, just minutes after the inauguration of America's new president, Ronald Reagan.
POSTSCRIPT: Many analysts believe that Iran's present president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, played an active role in the hostage crisis, and that he can be seen in some of the photos of the relevant events. Ahmadinejad is known to have been member of the "Office for Strengthening of Unity Between Universities and Theological Seminaries" or the OSU, the main "student" group behind the takeover.
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