The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (37 page)

On September 13, 2003, KSM explained a coding system for telephone numbers for Issa that produced no results.
1517
On October 16, 2003, KSM identified a picture of an individual known as “Nakuda,” as Abu Issa al-Britani.
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CIA relayed this information to U.K. officials, who responded that this identification was “extremely unlikely.”
1519
CIA detainee Khallad bin Attash was shown the same photograph and stated that the photo “definitely” was not Issa.
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CIA officers wrote that KSM “is obstructing our ability to acquire good information” on Issa and noting that KSM has “misidentified photos when he knows we are fishing” and “misleads us on telephone numbers.”
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A cable from the CIA’s ALEC Station stated that “KSM appears to have knowingly led us astray on this potentially important, albeit historical, lead [the phone numbers] to one of our most hotly pursued targets.”
1522

In October 2003, CIA officers wrote:

“even with all we have learned from our on-going partnership with [the United Kingdom] and various detainees, we have not been able to obtain accurate locational information, including confirmed phone numbers and timely information on email addresses. Our latest information, based on [foreign partner reporting] and a detainee’s assessment [Moazzem Begg in U.S. military custody], is that Issa is believed to currently be located in Wembley, a suburb of London.”
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In January 2004, █████ urged ███ [foreign partner] officials to █████████ interview Nisar Jilal (aka Sulyman) “in light of Ujaama’s reporting” from the FBI confirming a relationship between Issa al-Hindi and Nisar Jilal.
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Instead, ███ [foreign partner] officials began planning an operation
███████████████████████
.
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█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
. One individual
████████████
personally saw Issa al-Hindi on June █, 2003, in the Wembley area of South London. Based on the FBI reporting and the email coverage, U.K. authorities continuously surveilled Nisar Jilal (aka Sulyman) and photographed his associates.
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A specific series of photographs was passed by ████ [foreign partner] officials to CIA officials ███████ depicting an individual whom CIA officials wrote “bears a striking resemblance” to the Issa al-Hindi sketch provided by Moazzem Begg, the detainee in U.S. military custody.
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The CIA would later write that Moazzem Begg’s “description and resulting sketch of U.K. contact Issa al-Hindi” was “compared to a still shot of an unidentified man taken from a surveillance video of UK extremists,” and the comparison “revealed that the man in the video probably [was] the elusive Issa al-Hindi.”
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With the suspicion that the photo was Issa al-Hindi, the CIA’s █████████ requested the photo be “shown to detainees” and requested “immediate feedback.”
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According to a CIA cable dated June 17, 2004, the suspected Issa al-Hindi photograph was shown to KSM, who “confirmed that the unidentified photo depicts al-Hindi.”
1530

By July 2, 2004, ███ [foreign partner] authorities had informed the CIA that they felt “confident” that Issa’s true name was “Dhiren Barot.” According to ███ reporting, while under surveillance, Issa was observed talking for an extended period of time ████████████████████████████████████ in the vicinity where James Ujaama (in FBI custody) had placed Issa.
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███ [foreign partner] authorities observed that Issa drove ████████ to a residence in Wembley. A record search of the address in Wembley by U.K. authorities identified a passport application with a photograph that matched the Issa under surveillance. The name on the passport application was Issa’s true name, Dhiren Barot.
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Once identified, Dhiren Barot remained under U.K. surveillance as the U.K. collected additional information on Dhiren Barot and his activities. On July ██, 2004, an al-Qa’ida associate named Abu Talha al-Pakistani was arrested and detained by Pakistani officials.
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CIA records indicate that the arrest occurred after ██████████████████████████ identified when and where Abu Talha al-Pakistani would be at
█████████████
.
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On July ██, 2004, after Abu Talha’s capture, Pakistani authorities conducted a series of raids and seized a laptop computer that was shared with the U.S. government.
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The computer was suspected of belonging to senior al-Qa’ida member, Hamza Rabi’a,
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and contained a series of undated, Enghsh-language casing reports. In all, the computer contained over 500 photographs, maps, sketches, and scanned documents associated with apparent casings.
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On July 31, 2004, KSM was questioned about the casing reports. KSM stated that he did not know of any al-Qa’ida plans by Abu Talha or anyone else to target the Citigroup/Citibank building. Prudential Group building, or the United Nations building in described in the documents.
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On the same day, Abu Talha, who was in the custody of a foreign government, stated the “U.S. casing reports were from Abu Issa.”
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Issa, aka Dhiren Barot, was still under surveillance by U.K. authorities at this time.
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On August 1, 2004, Abu Talha was shown a photograph of Dhiren Barot and “immediately identified him as Issa.” Abu Talha—who was cooperating with foreign government authorities—described Issa’s visit to Pakistan from February to April 2004, during which he stated “Issa” (aka Dhiren Barot) met with Hamza al-Rabi’a on multiple occasions to “discuss operations in the United Kingdom and targets already cased in the United States.” Abu Talha stated that Issa believed his activities and identity were not known to the authorities.
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An August 3, 2004, cable stated that “analysis of information on [the] hard drive” of the computer seized “revealed a document . . . that is a detailed study on the methodologies to affect a terrorist attack.” According to the cable, “the study describes the operational and logistics environment in the UK.” The document is divided into two main parts. The first part includes seven chapters on the topic entitled “rough presentation for gas limo project.” The second part is entitled “rough presentation for radiation (dirty bomb) project.” The “gas limo project” section concludes that the most feasible option would be to use a limousine to deliver explosives, while the “dirty bomb” project section states that smoke detectors could be used to deliver the radioactive substance americium-147. The document proposes to use 10,000 smoke detectors as part of an explosive device to spread this radioactive element. In addition, the document discusses the vulnerabilities of trains and the possibilities of hijacking and utilizing gasoline tankers to conduct a terrorist attack.
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On the same day the analysis was disseminated, August 3, 2004, U.K. authorities arrested Dhiren Barot and 12 other individuals, and seized “over 100 hard-drives.”
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On August 7, 2004, the U.K. shared ██████████████ associated with Dhiren Barot with the U.S. government. The ████ [information provided] included copies of casing reports related to the United States and the United Kingdom.
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On August 17, 2004, U.K. authorities charged nine individuals in relation to the Dhiren Barot, aka Issa al-Hindi, investigation.
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U.K. authorities informed the CIA that “[d]espite intelligence about the activities of the network, the recent charges of the individuals involved or linked to this planning were mainly possible owing to the recovery of terrorist-related materials during searches of associated properties and vehicles following their arrests.”
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On August 23, 2004, the CIA received an update from
████
[foreign partner] authorities that noted the “research conducted by the [Barot] network into central London hotels and railway stations [is] likely to be exploratory rather than representing a detailed operational plan.”
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A report from the ████ [foreign partner] stated:

“material that is emerging from [the United Kingdom] investigation, combined with detainee reporting from senior al-Qa’ida members [an apparent reference to Abu Talha al-Palistani’s reporting on U.K. targeting in Pakistani custody], strongly suggests that Barot’s cell was planning a terrorist attack in the U.K., what is not yet clear is how close the cell was to mounting an attack or what, if any, targets had been finalized.”
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On August 30, 2004, talking points on the Dhiren Barot case were prepared by CIA officers. A CIA officer wrote that KSM’s reporting on contact numbers for Issa was “a dead end” and “that it appears KSM was protecting al-Hindi.”
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The talking points highlighted the cyber capabilities enabled by the USA PATRIOT Act in the investigation of Dhiren Barot, stating:

“Probably the most important intelligence tool we used in breaking this [Dhiren Barot] case was our cyber capability enabled by the USA Patriot Act. From beginning to end cyber played a role, but it was not the only tool that was used. HUMINT and SIGINT threads were followed and contributed to our understanding of the cyber messages and also in finding new cyber leads. Exploitation of computers and other information obtained in raids before and during the case also contributed significantly, as did surveillance. However, none of these tools are stand-alones. Good old fashioned hard targeting and analysis of these maddeningly vague and disparate and incomplete threads of information was the glue that put it all together.”
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On September 10, 2004, the Interagency Intelligence Committee on Terrorism (IICT) disseminated a report entitled, “Homeland: Reappraising al-Qa’ida’s Election Threat,” which states:

“We do not know the projected timeframe for any attacks Issa was planning to execute in the UK, but it is unlikely he would have been ready to strike in the near term. Upon returning to the UK in mid-2004, Issa attempted to gather materials to build explosives for future attacks in the UK . . . [U.K.] authorities have been unable to locate any explosives precursors, and it is possible he had not yet acquired the necessary materials at the time of his detention. The detainee [Abu Talha al-Pakistani] also noted that some of Issa’s operatives required further training—most likely in explosives—and that [Issa] intended to send an associate to Pakistan for three months to receive instruction from senior al-Qa’ida explosives experts.”
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The assessment adds, “Issa appears to have been in an early phase of operational planning at the time of his capture.”
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In November 2004, ████ authorities informed the CIA that “it was largely through the investigation of Nisar Jalal’s associates that [the U.K.] was able to identify Dhiren Barot as being [identifiable] with Issa al-Hindi.”
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A December 14, 2004, FBI Intelligence Assessment entitled, “The Gas Limos Project: An al-Qa’ida Urban Attack Plan Assessment,” evaluated “the feasibility and lethality of this plot” based on “documents captured during raids” against “al-Qa’ida operatives in Pakistan and the United Kingdom in July and August 2004, and on custodial interviews conducted in the weeks following these raids.” The FBI concluded that “the main plot presented in the Gas Limos Project is unlikely to be as successful as described.” The report continued: “We assess that the Gas Limos Project, while ambitious and creative, is far-fetched.”
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On December 12, 2005, the CIA assessed that “while KSM tasked al-Hindi to go to the US to surveil targets, he was not aware of the extent to which Barot’s planning had progressed, who Issa’s co-conspirators were, or that Issa’s planning had come to focus on the UK.”
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On November 7, 2006, Dhiren Barot was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United Kingdom. On May 16, 2007, Dhiren Barot’s sentence was reduced to 30 years after a British Court of Appeal found that expert assessments describing the plot as “amateurish,” “defective,” and unlikely to succeed were not provided to the sentencing judge.
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5. The Identification, Capture, and Arrest of Iyman Faris

summary
: The CIA represented that its enhanced interrogation techniques were effective and produced critical, otherwise unavailable intelligence, which thwarted plots and saved lives. Over a period of years, the CIA provided the “identification,” “arrest,” “capture,” “investigation,” and “prosecution” of Iyman Faris as evidence for the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. These representations were inaccurate. Iyman Faris was identified, investigated, and linked directly to al-Qa’ida prior to any mention of Iyman Faris by KSM or any other CIA detainee. When approached by law enforcement, Iyman Faris voluntarily provided information and made self-incriminating statements. On May 1, 2003, Iyman Faris pled guilty to terrorism-related charges and admitted “to casing a New York City bridge for al Qaeda, and researching and providing information to al Qaeda regarding the tools necessary for possible attacks on U.S. targets.”

further details
: Iyman Faris was an Ohio-based truck driver tasked by KSM with procuring “tools and devices needed to collapse suspension bridges,” as well as tools that could be used to derail trains.
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Faris had met KSM through his self-described “best friend,” Maqsood Khan,
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who was a Pakistan-based al-Qa’ida facilitator and Majid Khan’s uncle.
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