AL QAEDA - Denver phone system was secret conduit from Arabia to Britain

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RockyMountainNews

Al-Qaida cell dialed via Denver

Phone system was secret conduit from Arabia to Britain

By Lou Kilzer, News Staff Writer

One of Osama bin Laden's key al-Qaida cells used a phone system in Denver for secret communications between Saudi Arabia and Great Britain in the 1990s, according to a bin Laden confidant based in London.

The system, using an MCI 800 number, was established to thwart Saudi attempts to intercept messages, said Mohammed al-Massari.

It incorporated toll-free lines established for U.S. servicemen during the Gulf War, al-Massari said. The calls were placed from Saudi Arabia, and then transferred from Denver to Great Britain.

His account was confirmed by his estranged wife, former Denver resident Lujain al-Iman, who also lives in London. And Denver's FBI office said it is aware of the al-Qaida connection to Denver, but would not elaborate.

Al-Iman, 35, said she set up the Denver-based telephone system at her husband's request in 1994. She said she does not know how long the London al-Qaida cell -- the Advice and Reformation Committee -- used the phone account.

Some of those involved with the telephone setup are still in the metro area, al-Iman said, although she declined to provide names.

Al-Massari, 55, a theoretical physicist and former Saudi diplomat, was posted to Denver for 2 1/2 years as an educational attache working with students. But his militant opposition to the House of Saud got him recalled to Saudi Arabia in late 1986, where he taught at King Saud University in Riyadh.

Al-Massari, during a phone interview from London with the Rocky Mountain News, said that it took six weeks to get the telephone lines to work. Bin Laden personally called him to thank him and to exchange small talk after the system was activated, he said.

The Advice and Reformation Committee was created as a propaganda organ by bin Laden in 1994. Its former leader, Khalid al Fawwaz, is under indictment for conspiring to kill Americans between 1993 and 1998.

Al Fawwaz purchased the satellite phone that bin Laden later used to send him instructions concerning the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, according to testimony at the trial of al-Qaida members accused in the bombings.

Al Fawwaz was a key connection between bin Laden and al-Massari and his wife, al-Iman.

Al-Iman said she knew Fawwaz worked for bin Laden when she set up the Denver phone lines, but she did not suspect that Fawwaz might be involved in terror.

"I thought he was just a human rights activist like my husband," she said. "It was before any type of bombing happened."

Though he may have started out a human rights activist, al-Massari has become increasingly militant in his support of bin Laden's terrorism.

He has publicly endorsed bin Laden's actions, including his declaration of war on the United States and its citizens.

"He's fully justified in doing that. Yes, indeed," al-Massari told the News.

The Saudi government has pressed President Bush to use his influence on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to have al-Massari deported to Saudi Arabia, according to news reports.

Al-Iman, whose birth name is Cathy Fore, grew up in a Denver foster home, attended East High, and, at 18, married her first Arabic husband, whom she describes as a Saudi Arabian playboy. The marriage lasted a year.

She married her second husband a year later, in 1987. That marriage lasted three years and produced a son, Ali Atif.

In early 1991, al-Massari -- now living back in Saudi Arabia -- called old friends in Denver to inquire about finding a wife. Though he was 20 years her senior, al-Iman agreed to the union and they were married that year.

She soon entered a world shaded by terror.

Al-Massari and some like-minded men formed the Committee for Defense of Legitimate Rights in 1993, and met with several American diplomats.

Soon after that, he was ensnared in a Saudi dragnet and imprisoned for six months. He then escaped to Yemen and made his way to London, she said.

Al-Iman had given birth to their son and remained in Saudi Arabia. When she tried to return to Denver, authorities said her oldest son could not go with her. She eventually left him with his father, her second husband.

Back in Denver, al-Iman established the Action Committee for the Rights of Middle East Minorities to work in tandem with her husband's committee in London.

That's when al-Massari asked her to set up the 800 phone system, she said.

Al-Iman moved to London in late 1994 and separated from al-Massari a year later.

Her committee continued to operate in Denver until 1997, she said. It is not known if the parallel phone system used by bin Laden's Advice and Reformation Committee continued to operate.

In London, al-Massari became more strident. He called the Saudi regime "Satanic," and called for its end.

In 1995, after a car bomb exploded near a U.S. military facility in Saudi Arabia, killing several people, al-Massari conducted a news conference in London where he played videotape of bin Laden and said the attack was justified.

In 1996, al-Massari published bin Laden's declaration of war. In February 1998, he signed a statement advocating attacks on American targets.

Most of al-Massari's militancy comes as a surprise to al-Iman. She said she knew nothing about the recent fatwa.

"I would be surprised if that was true." But, she added that "unless I ask him directly what he's doing, he doesn't usually tell me. And I don't usually ask."

She says she believes her husband is not a militant, only a very religious man.

She shares custody with al-Massari of their 8-year-old son. Her 13-year-old son still lives in Saudi Arabia. She said she hopes one day to visit with her adopted family in Denver.

For his part, al-Massari says that "it's a pity that a physicist has to do politics because regimes have failed," but he says he had no choice. "We don't have the luxury of doing science."

He expects another terrorist attack on the United States.

"I'll bet my life that there are (al-Qaida) sleepers waiting for the moment . . .

"The way of thinking for those (al-Qaida) people is different than the way of thinking of the FBI and the CIA," he said. "And the channels (the Americans) are following in the investigation are obviously blind channels. Some of them are deliberately set up."

Al-Massari says he expects some more efforts to extradite him to Saudi Arabia, which he will fight. As far as speaking out in favor of bin Laden, al-Massari says he is playing according to the rules, as he knows them.

"The U.S. and United Kingdom claim to guarantee the freedom of speech. They do not say they are the Spanish Inquisition.

"But if they say it, then we will act accordingly."

November 10, 2001

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2001


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