Jihad Joe_ Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam - J. M. Berger [30]
The investigation into Shalabi’s assassination was hampered by the standards of the day. At the time, both the NYPD and the FBI were prohibited from conducting investigations predicated on religion. Although Shalabi’s killing had clear connections to his religious community, investigators weren’t even allowed to use the word “Muslim” in their reports.57
Within the local Muslim community, rumors flew hard and fast. Some said the CIA had killed Shalabi; others suggested a Jewish conspiracy. In 2005 New York City detectives extracted a confession that confirmed what had long been suspected: the killing was carried out by the increasingly fanatical followers of Omar Abdel Rahman. According to the confession, three men, all American citizens, took part in the murder—Bilal Alkaisi, Mohammed Salameh, and Nidal Ayyad. None were ever prosecuted for the crime.58
As in the Khalifa case, El Hage told investigators he knew nothing about the murder. He claimed that Shalabi had failed to pick him up at the airport as they had arranged, and he had hitched a ride with another Al Kifah official, only to hear about the murder days later.59
With Shalabi out of the way, there were few personalities who could draw focus away from the blind sheikh, and the local jihadists either lined up in his camp or dropped out altogether. Rahman had a galvanizing effect on the Brooklyn jihadists who, under Shalabi, had mostly confined themselves to training on weekends.
“He was like a major league ballplayer that wound up playing in a minor-league stadium. He made everybody else around him better,” said Tom Corrigan, an NYPD detective who worked with FBI agents on New York’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), which had taken an interested in Rahman’s circle after the Kahane killing.60
The energy generated by Rahman was building to a peak. Shalabi’s killers were not sated; they desired more violence and were now plotting as a terrorist cell.
Goaded by Nosair, whom they had visited in prison, Salameh and Ayyad settled on the strategy of bombing Jewish targets in New York City. Alkaisi, a Palestinian American who had trained in explosives in Afghanistan, broke with the group after an argument over money. The remaining plotters now lacked expertise.61
The cell sought help from overseas, and in September 1992 Ramzi Yousef and Ahmad Ajaj flew into New York City from Peshawar, Pakistan.62
Yousef, a Pakistani, was an explosives genius who had refined his craft at Khaldan, an al Qaeda training camp in the vicinity of Khost, Afghanistan, and at the University of Dawa and Jihad in Pakistan. He spent several months shuttling between Khost and Peshawar, extending his own knowledge to others. Ajaj was one of his students.
At the camps, Yousef, Ajaj, and unknown accomplices had been discussing a plot to bomb the World Trade Center in New York. When Salameh’s cell called for help, it was the perfect opportunity to make his scheme a reality.63
Investigators do not know exactly how the New York conspirators managed to secure Yousef’s participation in the plot, but several of the New York plotters— including Salameh, Ayyad, and Egyptian immigrant Mahmud Abouhalima—had been trained by Ali Mohamed, al Qaeda’s mole at Fort Bragg.64
Mohamed was in Afghanistan when the connection was made, training al Qaeda commanders in military tactics while working on his Encyclopedia of Jihad. For the flight to America, Ajaj had packed a collection of terrorist and military manuals in Arabic and English. The books were virtually identical to those Mohamed had given Nosair in New Jersey a few years earlier.65
Was Mohamed the link between the New York cell and Ramzi Yousef? The evidence is lacking, but the circumstantial case is intriguing.
“That would make more sense than anything I’ve heard before,” said Corrigan, the JTTF investigator, when asked whether Mohamed could have arranged for Yousef to join the cell. On the other