While Masood was greeting them, one of the Arabs detonated a bomb hidden in his clothing, mortally injuring Masood,” states the documents. On the morning of 9 September 2001, two Arabs posing as journalists met with Masood. “All efforts to strengthen Masood came to a sudden end before he had accomplished any notable covert actions that were a serious threat to bin Ladin. "The poor quality of Masood's also complicated CTC's ability to coordinate with him and evaluate his activities," the report said, in reference to his Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters, used to traverse Afghanistan's mountain terrain.Īfter one of these helicopters crashed in 2000, authorities put a temporary halt on helicopter visits to the area, and the report said "many months" were spent trying to procure replacement helicopters.Ī number of CIA-CTC officers interviewed by investigators felt that the ban on using Masood’s helicopters had "doomed" the Agency’s attempt to help him. ![]() Helicopters came up repeatedly as a problem the CIA had in liaising with Masood. Panjshir was far from bin Laden’s area of movement and Masood himself was fighting for his own survival against the Taliban, leaving him little time to monitor bin Laden. The report described Masood as having "unique virtues as an ally of the United States against bin Ladin" and noted he was the "last leader opposed to the Taliban" who had already controlled significant territory within Afghanistan.īut by 1998, Masood had been forced out of Kabul and had retreated north to his old Panjshir Valley stronghold in the Hindu Kush Mountains. One potential candidate who could have helped the CIA bypass unreliable tribal assets and capture bin Laden was Afghan warlord Ahmad Shah Masood, whose army fought against the Taliban in the 1990s civil war. “CTC officers were extremely committed and did their best, but HUMINT operations were of only limited effectiveness against the hard al-Qa’ida and UBL targets," the report said. ![]() However, they had no access to his inner circle. This left only Pakistan as the major access route for the US to al-Qaeda’s operating zone in southern Afghanistan, but American-Pakistani relations were frosty prior to 9/11.ĭespite these obstacles, the CIA had a HUMINT network of sorts in Afghanistan reporting on bin Laden’s activities, such as relations with the Taliban government sheltering his network and his other movements. ![]() In addition, information regarding major terrorist plots was not widely shared within al-Qa’ida.
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