Sentinel: Scott Wheeler's Intelligence Report

Terrorist agent in the nation’s capital. In a January interview with Pakistan’s Geo television, Islamic fundamentalist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar stated that, in late 2001, he and his rebel army rescued al Qaeda’s top leaders from U.S. armed forces at Tora Bora.

“After the American attack on Afghanistan, I directed my people to evacuate our guest brothers to safer places,” he said. “Some valiant and honest mujahideen of Hizb-e-Islami [Hekmatyar’s organization] evacuated Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri [al Qaeda’s number two man] along with some other comrades and transferred them to a safer place. I met with them there.”

This confirms what a senior U.S. government terrorism authority told the Sentinel back in 2004, when he said he’d seen evidence that Hekmatyar and his army had helped bin Laden escape from Afghanistan.

Hekmatyar served as Afghan prime minister in the 1990s, when he tried to set up a “pure Islamic government.” He maintains his own armed organization, Hizb-e-Islami, and his own intelligence force, Etlaa-at. In February 2003, the U.S. government officially declared him a terrorist, stating that Hekmatyar has “participated in and supported terrorist acts committed by al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

More disturbing, though, is the fact that for nearly three years, the Sentinel has been tracking a key Hekmatyar agent operating inside the United States.

Through Afghani sources close to this individual, the Sentinel has confirmed that he is indeed a Hekmatyar operative. This agent (whom Sentinel will not identify at this time) has moved freely about the United States and is currently based near the nation’s capital. He maintains a communications link with other, unknown Hizb-e-Islami members, passing along written messages from Hekmatyar at times when the terrorist warlord’s whereabouts are unknown. In one of those communications, the operative spoke of his own involvement with violent jihad, purifying “the ranks of the Mujahadin,” and “establishing a true Islamic state.”

A recently retired counterterrorism official, who spent much of his career in covert operations, confirms to the Sentinel that “Hizb-e-Islami is here” in America and that Hekmatyar’s organization is likely to be “fellow travelers with Hezbollah,” the Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization.

Most ominously, the Sentinel investigation has turned up links between Hekmatyar’s operative and prominent, mainstream Islamic organizations in America, some of which are quoted frequently by our media as representing “moderate Muslims.”

Whose side are they on, anyway? Sources close to the front lines in the war on terror have provided disturbing details about the insurgency in Iraq. Some members of the Iraqi police and army, being trained by U.S. forces, are actually members the Mahdi Army of radical Islamic cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and are using their American military training to attack American soldiers.

U.S. forces in Iraq tell the Sentinel that some of their trainees, and some of their attackers, are the same people. These sources also tell the Sentinel that key Iraqi military officials have gone missing from their posts and that attacks on U.S. forward operating bases (FOBs) have become more lethal—indicative of insiders’ knowledge of how American forces conduct operations. Some of these attacks involve anti-vehicle and anti-personnel mines, and improvised mortar attacks launched from positions just a few hundred meters outside the FOBs.

Complicating responses to these close-in attacks are restrictions imposed by the soldiers’ “Rules of Engagement,” which they describe as ambiguous at best. Frontline sources tell the Sentinel that even when they see improvised mortars being set up outside their camps, they are usually “instructed to do nothing.”     

Extremist makeover. The Sentinel has obtained a transcript of an international telephone call that was intercepted and translated from Arabic into English. The conversation was between Abd al-Aziz Rantissi, the now-deceased head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), and a Hamas operative inside the United States. The agent appeared to be advising Rantissi on the status of Hamas operations in America.

“The Islamic community has become like one lump sum in the eyes of the enemy,” the operative reported—apparently meaning that American citizens (“the enemy”) viewed all Muslins as potential terrorists following 9/11. To address this problem, the operative recommended that the group tone down its bloodthirsty image.

“You don’t need to show those who are dressed for death in your celebrations… because the international public can see your actions through the TV or the internet,” he told Rantissi. The agent stressed the “need to use a more sophisticated way” to infiltrate Western nations. “You must shave your beard and look like the people in the country you live in,” he told the terrorist leader.

The Hamas operative even recommended a possible role model. “The most effective and painful resistance against Israel is Hizbollah, yet they are not dressing like Hamas or holding swords. They have a sophisticated way in addressing their issues.”

It is unknown whether the Hamas leader adopted the recommendations of his American-based image consultant. Rantissi assumed control of Hamas in March 2004, but was quickly term-limited by an Israeli helicopter-fired missile that killed him on April 17, 2004.