Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Secret phone system operated by an al-Qaeda cell out of Denver

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Monday, November 12, 2001
Secret phone system operated by an al-Qaeda cell out of Denver
The 800 number was used to thwart Saudi attempts to intercept calls by the group to Britain
By Lou Kilzer
Scripps Howard News Service
   DENVER - One of Osama bin Laden's key al-Qaeda cells used a phone system in Denver for secret communications between Saudi Arabia and Britain in the 1990s, according to a bin Laden confidant based in London.
   The system, using an MCI 800 number, was established to thwart Saudi attempts to intercept messages, said Mohammed al-Massari.
   It incorporated toll-free lines established for U.S. servicemen during the Gulf War, al-Massari said. The calls were placed from Saudi Arabia and then transferred from Denver to Britain.
   His estranged wife, former Denver resident Lujain al-Iman, who also lives in London, confirmed his account. And Denver's FBI office said it is aware of the al-Qaeda connection to Denver, but would not elaborate.
   Some still in Denver
   Al-Iman, 35, said she set up the Denver-based telephone system at her husband's request in 1994. She said she does not know how long the London al-Qaeda cell - the Advice and Reformation Committee - used the phone account.
   Some of those involved with the telephone setup are still in the Denver area, al-Iman said, although she declined to provide names.
   Al-Massari, 55, a theoretical physicist and former Saudi diplomat, was posted to Denver for 2 1/2 years as an educational attache working with students. But his militant opposition to the House of Saud got him recalled to Saudi Arabia in late 1986, where he taught at King Saud University in Riyadh.
   Al-Massari, during a phone interview from London, said it took six weeks to get the telephone lines to work. Bin Laden personally called him to thank him and to exchange small talk after the system was activated, he said.
   The Advice and Reformation Committee was created as a propaganda organ by bin Laden in 1994. Its former leader, Khalid al Fawwaz, is under indictment for conspiring to kill Americans between 1993 and 1998.
   Bin Laden connections
   Al Fawwaz purchased the satellite phone that bin Laden later used to send him instructions concerning the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, according to testimony at the trial of al-Qaeda members accused in the bombings.
   Al Fawwaz was a key connection between bin Laden and al-Massari and his wife, al-Iman.
   Al-Iman said she knew Al Fawwaz worked for bin Laden when she set up the Denver phone lines, but she did not suspect that Al Fawwaz might be involved in terror.
   Finding a wife
   Though he may have started out a human rights activist, al-Massari has become increasingly militant in his support of bin Laden's terrorism. He has publicly endorsed bin Laden's actions, including his declaration of war on the United States and its citizens.
   The Saudi government has pressed President Bush to use his influence on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to have al-Massari deported to Saudi Arabia, according to news reports.
   Al-Iman grew up in Denver and, at 18, married her first Arabic husband. The marriage lasted a year. She married her second husband a year later, in 1987. That marriage lasted three years and produced a son, Ali Atif.
   In early 1991, al-Massari - then living back in Saudi Arabia - called old friends in Denver to inquire about finding a wife. Though he was 20 years her senior, al-Iman agreed to the union and they were married that year.
   Al-Massari and some like-minded men formed the Committee for Defense of Legitimate Rights in 1993, and met with several American diplomats. Soon after that, he was ensnared in a Saudi dragnet and imprisoned for six months. He then escaped to Yemen and made his way to London, she said.
   Al-Iman had given birth to their son and remained in Saudi Arabia. When she tried to return to Denver, authorities said her oldest son could not go with her.
   Back in Denver, al-Iman established the Action Committee for the Rights of Middle East Minorities to work in tandem with her husband's committee in London. That's when al-Massari asked her to set up the 800 phone system, she said.

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