Planning Terrorism: The 2000 Al Qaeda Meeting In Malaysia

The Darkened Hour

In December 1999, NSA analysts working on a covert signals intelligence operation on an Al Qaeda network hub in Sana'a , Yemen, pick up an important phone call from Malaysia. The caller tells someone by the name of "Khalid", to tell the two others, to come to a meeting in Malaysia. The caller was identified as someone by the name of "Khallad".

The CIA, which heads all international operations, had then asked Malaysian authorities to conduct a surveillance team from the Special Branch, and take photographs of anyone at this meeting. Afterwards, two of the meetings occupants, 'Khalid' and 'Nawaf', who possessed US visas, were coming to the United States. NSA and CIA then blocked the FBI from sharing this intelligence from being shared with FBI headquarters. Question is why?

In this episode, we will go over the factual information regarding this meeting, where some of the information comes from Chapter 1 of Bob Graham's excellent book, "The CIA, The FBI, Saudi Arabia, And The Failure Of America’s War On Terror"

Bob Graham's book: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Matters-Arabia-Failure-Americas/dp/0700616268