Decade after 9/11, Chicago comes into focus as target

Obscured by the Blizzard of February 2011 was a far more potent threat.

The Communiqué of February 2010.

“FBI hunts the 9/11 gang that got away” was the headline in Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, which broke the story.

“The FBI has launched a manhunt for a previously unknown team of men suspected to be part of the 9/11 attacks,” revealed the paper last Tuesday.

That was the same day the blizzard began here.

The story received scant attention the next day, when most Chicagoans were too busy shoveling, blowing and plowing and news organizations here were preoccupied with snow coverage.

According to the Telegraph, a government cable from the U.S. Embassy in Doha, Qatar, dated Feb. 11, 2010, was sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's office, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the CIA.

“Secret documents reveal that the three Qatari men conducted surveillance on the targets, provided ‘support' to the plotters and had tickets for a flight to Washington on the eve of the atrocities.

“The details of the secret 9/11 team have emerged in a secret American government document obtained by the WikiLeaks website and passed to The Daily Telegraph. It was sent between the American Embassy in Doha and the Department for Homeland Security in Washington,” reported the Telegraph.

Regardless of where you stand on the whole WikiLeaks issue, the authenticity and veracity of American government cables are not being challenged.

In the case of the “mystery trio” report, the fact is that a group of 9/11 plotters is still out there.

And it is almost 10 years after the attack.

According information from the February 2010 government cable:

“The suspected terrorists flew from London to New York on a British Airways flight three weeks before the (Sept. 11) attacks.

“They allegedly carried out surveillance at the World Trade Center, the White House and in Virginia, the U.S. state where the Pentagon and CIA headquarters are located.

“Ten days later they flew to Los Angeles, where they stationed themselves in a hotel near the airport which the FBI has now established was paid for by a ‘convicted terrorist', who also paid for their airline tickets.

“Hotel staff have told investigators they saw pilot uniforms in their room along with computer printouts detailing pilot names, flight numbers and times and packages addressed to Syria, Afghanistan, Jerusalem and Jordan.

“On September 10 they were booked on an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Washington, but failed to board. The following day the same Boeing 757 aircraft was hijacked by five terrorists and crashed into the Pentagon.

“But, instead of boarding the American flight, the Qatari suspects flew back to London on a British Airways flight before returning to Qatar. Their current location is unknown.”

According to the diplomatic cable posted on WikiLeaks website, investigators are also hunting a fourth man who they say supported the alleged terrorist cell in the United States.

This mysterious 9/11 scout team that was in California mirrors a group of al-Qaida operatives that is also believed to have been on reconnaissance missions in Chicago before Sept. 11, 2001. Based on the timing and description of the group alone, it could even have been the same scouting team.

The 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told U.S. interrogators that the group had planned simultaneous attacks on the Library Tower in Los Angeles and the Chicago skyscraper then known as the Sears Tower.

Last November during a visit to Chicago, former President George W. Bush said the Sears Tower was “a genuine target” of terrorists who attacked American in 2001.

There is great suspicion and ample evidence that both Los Angeles and Chicago were bona fide targets on 9/11 along with New York and Washington, but that al-Qaida called an audible as events played out.

The three mystery men from Qatar were under investigation by the FBI as one of “thousands” of leads chased following 9/11, according to U.S. officials interviewed by ABC News.

They were looked at hard, one of the officials said, but no evidence linked them directly to the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Such a statement seems predictable, especially since federal authorities have lost track of the trio.

Here is something else that is predictable: Before WikiLeaks publishes the last of 251,287 leaked confidential diplomatic cables this year, one of them will provide rich details of the 9/11 plot against Chicago.

And with three known al-Qaida planners still on the loose along with countless other terror operatives, let's hope the authorities are better prepared than they were for Lake Shore Drive in a blizzard.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com and followed at twitter.com/ChuckGoudie