Subject: SIT 01-09-18; Bulletin: Taliban Crisis Date: 9/18/01 5:55 PM Received: 9/18/01 6:41 PM From: ben works, BenWorks@aol.com To: ben works, BenWorks@aol.com SIRIUS: The Strategic Issues Research Institute Benjamin C. Works, Executive Director 1515 Jeff Davis Hwy #408 * Arlington, VA 22202 703 415-1191; www.siri-us.com; E-mail: Benworks@AOL.Com --Speak the Truth and Shame the Devil-- Strategic Issues Today To Unsubscribe, send a terse e-message to benworks@aol.com September 18, 2001 Bulletin: The Taliban Crisis I shall remind readers that Saddam learned to use spies with cellular telephones to watch US military operations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Others have learned to put watchers at key US bases to report on movements of our troops and aircraft, including our bombers. This is another element of US counter-intelligence efforts in coming days. We have all been asked by the Administration to be vague about potential US operations, to respect operational security. The other side is monitoring all our media. I shall remind readers that Saddam learned to use spies with cellular telephones to watch US military operations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Others have learned to put watchers at key US bases to report on movements of our troops and aircraft, including our bombers. This is another element of US counter-intelligence efforts in coming days. We have all been asked by the Administration to be vague about potential US operations, to respect operational security. The other side is monitoring all our media. Here is some intelligence that SIRIUS has gleaned in conversations and e-mail with various SIRIUS sources, associates and readers. It is noteworthy that Chechen and KLA connections to the attacks have begun to emerge. Colombia has also called for an anti-terror war in South America, so the Third World War has become global, indeed. At six PM tonight, FoxNews reports that a connection between the bombers and Iraq is also emerging, via the World Trade Center kamikaze, Mohammad Atta. None of this should come as a surprise to SIRIUS readers. --Thanks to those of you who contributed to this report. Terrorists Milking the Capital Markets --Warning Signals: There is much speculation on the Internet that there was a lot of insider trading money made on the World Trade Center attacks, in Europe and America. It is true. For 10 years, SIRIUS has known that Saddam Hussein was playing the post-Desert Storm futures markets in oil and gas. Tom Friedman of the New York Times wrote about Saddam's trading a few years back. We will be reading more, soon, about just how many other markets got played with before last Tuesday's attacks. But certainly, oil, gold and the options markets were exploited by Osama's treasury staff. Other ways to bet on a market crash include selling stock "short" or selling the major index options. See the following article: Were Terrorists Short-Selling? Regulators Look at Pre-Attack Stock Trades William Drozdiak Washington Post Service Tuesday, September 18, 2001 A week ago, SIRIUS's director of capital markets research, a professional money manager, was the first to call the institute, just as the second airliner crashed into the World Trade Center. Following that conversation, I called another SIRIUS associate, an aviation industry consultant, to discuss the crashes, given that we had been discussing that possibility in the Spring of 1996. It was during that conversation that the third airliner struck the Pentagon. I missed something important from that first call. The reason I mention this is that my capital markets friend reminded me this morning that last Tuesday morning he told me, among other things, that he had heard Monday afternoon about a suspicious options trade. I can not name names in this report but can in background. Monday afternoon, there was a highly suspicious trade in 1400 "put" option contracts on AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines. The trade, representing a bet on a downward price movement on 140,000 shares of the underlying stock, was made in a market where the "open interest" (total number of outstanding contracts) was only 8400 contracts. Thus, the oversized trade was immediately reported to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), with the clear suspicion of "insider trading" on a tip. But Tuesday morning, their offices in 7 World Trade Center were evacuated and the building collapsed later in the day. The oversized trade has to have been a deliberate signal, put in place as an additional "screw you" message from the terrorist network. A form of the "Italian Finger Salute," if you like. A second source in a major Wall Street shop was also aware of this particular trade. Need I observe that this manipulation of the international capital markets is beyond the cynical, and a demonstration of an operational sophistication where Al-Qaeda's treasurers demonstrate that they are even more sophisticated than the kamikaze pilots? This is war in the information age. Terrorists and governments have learned new ways of attacking the American economy and, by extension, the entire global economy. Though I feel self-conscious writing what may appear callous, al-Qaeda's financiers made a fortune on the stock market crash precipitated by their terrorist's crashing into the stock market's many office spaces. It is increasingly important that the CIA and FBI will have to coordinate with the SEC, concerning suspicious trading surges. The audit trail on most trades will flow through a forest of obscure corporations, dummies and more obscure banks in less-regulated states. It will not be easy to follow the audit trail to stop the flow of profits back to Al-Qaeda and Saddam. Osama's Albanian Connections: The Washington Times' reporter, Bill Gertz, confirms in today's paper that Osama's connections in Albania (with the KLA) played a role in these attacks. Among other things, he reminds us that over 1000 blank Albanian passports were stolen from a government office during the 1997 political-economic chaos. Those who have been reading these reports over the years will not be surprised that there is an active connection between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Osama. Those in Congress who have supported the KLA all these years should be invited to "come to Jesus." A Chechen Connection: An associate of SIRIUS descended from Tsarist Russian nobility keeps an eye on Moscow and Chechnya, and reported this morning: Hello Ben, I'm don't have time to translate right now, but this story in Russian ties "Abdul Rahman the younger" to the Sept 11 attacks. I haven't seen anything in the western press along these lines...yet. The FSB (in Chechnya uncovered materials that included Boeing 737 manuals and other materials pointing directly to involvement in the attack on the USA. The location of the discovery was 10 km south-east of Argun in a place called Tsotsin-Yurt. http://www.gazeta.ru/2001/09/17/amerikuvzorv.shtml Osama's Lustful Past --Why these guys cruise topless Bars, drink and carry on: Discussed this element with two sources. One an American student of British Colonial History (soldiers' memoirs) the other a Yale classmate who is the son of a former Pakistani Air Force general. They both observed that Osama's recruits are mainly the pampered sons of the upper classes in these countries, with family money and education. In contrast, ordinary Taliban militia gunmen and mullahs are recruited from the poor of country villages. My classmate assured me, additionally, that Osama has a well-known track record of patronizing the best brothels of Beirut, stretching back more than 20 years. This is hardly the profile of an Islamic saint. The ways of conspiracies, like the ways of secret societies (the Assassins, Templars, Hospitalers, Free Masons, etc.) all built on initiating the candidate through a succession of degrees of higher knowledge of the group. This is how Osama builds his important terrorist personnel. How to Restore the Afghan Monarchy: King Zahir Shah is 87 and perhaps its better to select a younger member of the dynasty, more in touch with our times. Here's a suggestion in from an informed reader: Ben, After some inquiries on what to do about Afghanistan it's been suggested to me by an expert on Central Asia that we should bring in the King's grandson Mustafa too rule and reestablish the monarchy with a Loya Girga. This is a gathering or meeting of all the chiefs to discuss an issue. It seems vague to me but I'm told that this is the way that things have been done in Afghanistan for a long time and that it is the only way to achieve legitimacy for the monarchy. --EN Pakistan's Domestic Problems Taliban's university is located in the Pushtun-dominated Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan and recruits heavily from the Pushtun. They recruit teen-age boys from poor, rural villages and indoctrinate them. The graduates are often sent home as mullahs and operate primary schools, indoctrinating even younger boys with the Taliban dogma of death to America and Israel. This Islamist-political dogma has been allowed to grow in strength over the last decade and poses a material threat to order that General Musharraf must deal with. Still, he has committed to support US-led action against Taliban and Osama. My classmate and others think the threat to Musharraf is over-dramatized and he observed that the religious parties never poll more than 1-2% in Pakistani elections. The point is that fundamentalism is and is not a threat in Pakistan. Its dangers are well understood by the authorities and it can be managed. Film of demonstrations by Pakistanis show a few hundred, trying to crowd the lens of the camera. Film of Palestinian "demonstrations" are even smaller; a few small boys, a couple of young men and a couple old men giving the cameraman just what he wants. The largest demonstration SIRIUS has heard about was a march by 1500 Hamas supporters in the West Bank. More importantly, President Musharraf felt comfortable enough about progress with India that he could move troops from the Indian border to the Northwest Frontier and Afghan border. © Copyright 2001 by Benjamin C. Works - SIRIUS www.siri-us.com Recipients of this report may re-post it, in whole or in part, to Internet web sites and address lists, so long as the copyright notice is included, and "for fair use only."