| http://www.americanfreepress.net/12_01_01/Brutal_CIA_Operation/brutal_cia_operation.html
Did Brutal CIA Operation Turn Terror Toward U.S? One reason why some Arabs have targeted the United States for terrorism may have something to do with the grisly circumstances surrounding a previously secret CIA operation in Albania. Exclusive to American Free Press By Christopher J. Petherick The role the CIA played in overseeing the kidnapping and torture of several Arabs accused of being members in an international terrorist ring is part of a horrifying account told by a lawyer for the men in a series of reports made public against the wishes of the U.S. government. The backdrop for the men’s story was post-communist Albania. In the early 1990s, communists had outwardly relinquished control over the tiny impoverished country and a new regime took power ready to ally itself with U.S. intelligence agents. In return for allowing the CIA to use brutal—and often illegal—tactics to locate those accused of having knowledge of the inner workings of international terror cells, the new Albanian regime received arms deals and U.S. dollars. “Today, as the Bush administration loosens its interpretations of the rules on foreign assassination and other restraints imposed on the CIA in the 1970s, Amer i ca’s clandestine role in Albania illuminates some of the tactical and moral questions that lie ahead in the global war on terrorism,” reported Andrew Higgins and Christopher Cooper in The Wall Street Journal on Nov. 20. So led the CIA’s behind-the-scenes efforts to capture and interrogate a group of Arabs in Albania suspected of having knowledge of the inner workings of terror networks. And that is the story which Hafez Abu-Saada, the lawyer for six men captured by the CIA, wants the world to know about. According to Abu-Saada, one of his clients, Shawki Salama Attiya—a forger and an admitted member of Egyptian Jihad—was arrested on June 25, 1988, by Albania’s intelligence agency, known as “SHIK,” while driving in Albania’s capital, Tirana. He was taken several miles outside the city and placed in a holding cell in an abandoned airbase. That same day Albanian police searched Attiya’s home and found forgery equipment used to make fake visas and other documents, according to Higgins and Cooper. A few days later, Attiya found himself on a CIA plane bound for Cairo where he says he was severely tortured and interrogated for weeks. Attiya said he was kept in a tiny cell, often being forced to stand in filthy water up to his knees. He was subjected to electric shocks to his genitals, dragged on his face and severely beaten. Abu-Saada says that most of the other men he represented complained of similar treatment. Each said that after they were arrested in Albania, they were flown to Egypt where Egyptian police routinely applied electrical shocks to their nipples and genitals, and beat them severely, breaking fingers, ribs and faces. ‘AT THE CIA’S BEHEST’ Albanian security officials were forthright about CIA complicity in the monitoring and torture of the Arab men. While Albanian agents did all the dirty work, SHIK officers told Higgins and Cooper, the CIA provided training and expertise to be able to carry out the difficult and often illegal task of tracking individuals suspected of involvement in attacks against their own governments. Fatos Klosi, head of SHIK, told the two journalists that some of his agency’s actions, taken at the CIA’s prompting, were “not so justified legally.” On at least one occasion, Albanian agents visited Lang ley, Va., the home of the CIA, to learn surveillance and other intelligence-gathering techniques. SHIK agents told Higgins and Cooper that every few days, a CIA officer in Albania would pick up recordings of phone conversations between suspects taped on American equipment and send them back to America. The CIA would identify targets and then have the Albanian security officials arrest them. The CIA would then oversee the transfer of suspects to Egypt, where they would be questioned and eventually put on trial. By early 1999, more than 107 people had been rounded up in Albania and tried in one of the largest mass trials ever held in Egypt. Many of the men captured and transferred under the watchful eyes of the CIA were tortured and interrogated, and ultimately sentenced to life in prison or executed. At least 60 more Arabs suspected of involvement in terror networks were tried in absentia and convicted in closed hearings. Throughout the operation, Egyptian police amassed more than 20,000 pages in confessions given by the men, shedding some light on the inner workings of international terrorist networks. However, the accuracy of much of the men’s statements, apparently given under extreme duress, has been called into question. The question remains: did the CIA’s brutal operation radically alter the objectives of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Mideast, causing them to target America, too? Certainly this could be a factor, note some terrorism experts. “As the CIA operation drew to a close,” wrote Higgins and Cooper, “an Arab newspaper in London published a letter on Aug. 15, 1998, signed by the International Islamic Front for Jihad. The letter vowed revenge for the counterterrorism drive in Albania, promising to retaliate against Americans in a ‘language they will understand.’ “Two days later, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were blown up, killing 224 people,” said the Wall Street Journal reporters. * |
