The INS Fiscal Year 1999 budget request to Congress includes a total of 16 positions (15 agents) and $3,112,000 to augment INS' participation in Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF). These resources would provide INS representation in additional JTTF locations planned around the country, as well as to existing task force locations which require additional INS personnel due to their substantial alien-terrorist caseload. If the Congress were to provide these increased counterterrorism resources to INS in Fiscal Year 1999, it would enhance INS' role as an effective player in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. To date, the Senate has not included these resources in our appropriations bill. However, the House action would provide these resources. I know that there are areas in which progress and development are still needed, and I am confident that these will be worked out in the near future.

Mr. Chairman, I hope that these responses are helpful to you in assessing the direction of our program. I would like to thank you, the other members of the Subcommittees, and your staff for the interest in, and attention to, INS' efforts in the Federal Government's counterterrorism program.

Sincerely,

DORIS MEISSNER,

Comissioner.

RESPONSE OF OMAR ASHMAWY TO A QUESTION FROM SENATOR KYL

FAMILY DEATH THREAT

Question 1. You mentioned in your testimony that prior to the World Trade Center bombing, your father engaged in verbal debates with Sheik Rahman at the Sheik's mosque in Jersey City. Thereafter, his life, and his family's lives, were threatened. I understand that a death threat in the Muslim community can take a subtle form, as can its communication to the person threatened. Could you please explain in more detail how this particular threat came about, how it was communicated to your family, and what actions your family took in response?

Answer. The manner in which a death threat is issued in a Muslim community differs from the general western concept of a death threat. The difference is particularly evident when the threat is made against another member of the Muslim community. In this case, the progression of events that make up a death threat is considerably more subtle.

The religious leader who gives the "sermon" at the community mosque will, in one such "sermon” declare the person who they wished killed a kafr. Kafr, by definition, is a person who has renounced Islam. Furthermore, the kafr has technically renounced all monotheistic religions as well-effectively renouncing God. This declaration has a very particular meaning. Despite it being contrary to the spirit of Islam, an extremely minute segment of the community recognizes a tradition that teaches to kill such people is not an evil. The western understanding would be that to kill someone who is kafr would not be considered a sin. This declaration is taken by the leader's followers to be a sign that it is permissible, if not desirable, to kill the one declared kafr. Depending on the scenario, this could be considered an order to kill. Those who would heed such a declaration are part of the minute fraction of the Muslim community who are extreme in their beliefs. The vast majority of moderate Muslims would not even consider such an order.

In this case of my late father, the threat against his life occurred as described. One of the leaders at the mosque of Sheik Oman Abdel Rahman, in a sermon, declared my father a kafr. While I cannot recall how my father learned of the threat, I can assume with confidence that it was by word of mouth. My father, while concerned for his safety and that of his family, did not stop defending Islam and its teachings. My mother and I, believing as firmly as my father in the true teachings of our faith, continued to support my father's activities. The concern was real, but we each believed that what we were doing was worth the risk. Therefore, the day to day activities of our family did not really change significantly although we all felt a certain level of anxiety. It made the work my father was doing that much more difficult. It was no longer simply about doing what he thought was right. It now meant that he had to be willing to risk his life to fight for what he believed. He continued advocating the moderate Muslim voice and defending Islam because it needed to be done, even in the light of such risks.

QUESTIONS OF SENATOR HATCH TO THE FBI

Question 1. In recent years, there has been substantial improvement in communication and coordination between FBI and the rest of the Intelligence Community, notably on counterintelligence matters, but also on counterterrorism issues.

Do you believe the level of coordination is sufficiently combining resources between FBI and the rest of the Intelligence Community to match the current terrorist threat level?

Recognizing the improvement through recent years, do you believe there could be improvements in communication and coordination between FBI and the Intelligence Community? Would you have specific recommendations?

Question 2. In the report on the hearing on "Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States" (hearing held on February 1997; report released late 1997), the CIA was asked, in a written question, "What, if any, influence or contacts does (Usama Bin Ladin) have in the United States?" CIA answered, "We are unaware of his (Bin Ladin) having any influence or business contacts in the United States."

Does the FBI agree with this assessment? Is the FBI aware of any non-business influence Osama Bin Ladin has in the United States?

Question 3. In very interesting testimony before the committee, Mr. Ben Jacobsen of the Peregrine Group of Miami described certain consumer coupon fraud schemes that had been perpetrated by groups raising illicit funds that could be used for terrorist purposes.

How carefully is FBI monitoring these fraud schemes? Is it aware of the extent of the networks and the major players?

Question 4. In the same testimony, Mr. Jacobsen spoke of the case of Adnand Bahour, of North Hollywood, Fla., who was involved in a coupon fraud—and who was a nephew of PLO leader George Habash.

Certain terrorists have been known to use family connections, as well as cells, to further their plans. How does FBI balance legal rights against the need to sometimes monitor family members of known terrorists? Does FBI make automatic assumptions about such individuals?

Question 5. How may agents in the International Terrorism Operations Section speak Arabic? How many read Arabic?

Question 6. Witnesses testifying before the subcommittee gave a broad conceptual recognition of the nature of the terrorist threat today.

Does the FBI have a sufficient analysis of the state of the threat to U.S. interests, including the magnitude of the anticipated threat from international terrorism to U.S. interests, persons and property at home?

Does the FBI have the names and background of major terrorist groups and the leadership of such groups; their sources of financial and logistical support; the nature and scope of their human and technical infrastructure abroad and in the U.S.; and their goals, doctrine and strategies? Does the FBI know the quality and type of their education and technological training?

Does the FBI know and track bases domestic recruitment by foreign terrorists in the U.S.?

Answers. No responses were received from the FBI.

ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

SENATE JUDICIARY SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, TERRORISM, AND GOVERNMENT INFORMATION, SENATOR JON KYL, CHAIRMAN: MAJORITY STAFF REPORT ON "THE THWARTED BROOKLYN BOMB PLOT: IDENTIFYING, EXCLUDING, AND REMOVING TERRORISTS FROM THE UNITED STATES", FEBRUARY 24, 1998

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Excluding foreign terrorists from the United States must be a priority for U.S. counterterrorism policy and practice. In 1993, six Americans died in the World Trade Center bombing. Two CIA employees were slain that year outside of CIA headquarters. In 1995, a conspiracy to bomb the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels was in the works, and the New York FBI and United Nations buildings, but was thwarted. So was a bomb plot in Brooklyn, New York in 1997. Less well known is that numerous foreign terrorist organizations use the United States as a base to raise money, train recruits, solicit membership, educate students, and obtain weapons, increasing U.S. vulnerability to terrorist acts.

The purpose of this report is to identify the policies and practices the United States has in place to identify, exclude, and remove aliens with a terrorist history or affiliation who seek entry into the United States. Answers were sought from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the agency ultimately responsible for determining the admissibility of aliens into the United States, as well as the State, Justice, and Treasury Departments. The answers are disturbing.

The INS has no articulated counterterrorism policy. The INS needs to allocate sufficient resources to its newly created Counterterrorism Unit, responsible for both counterterrorism operations and intelligence. This unit needs to coordinate information received at U.S. points of entry, where the INS remains dependent on a terrorist database provided by the State Department and ad hoc information provided by field agents and inspectors. These databases are checked automatically at border gates. To date, State's database alone boasts 345 exclusions. Even so, identification and exclusion of foreign terrorists hangs by the tenuous thread of one dedicated database from an outside agency, without the built-in redundancy or supplemental intelligence supplied internally by INS to maximize the technology's effectiveness. The INS also needs to exhibit real commitment to the Foreign Student Tracking Program, mandated by Congress in 1996. Our academic institutions remain at risk of being used as a base to educate, recruit, and raise money for foreign terrorists, and yet the INS remains incapable of acquiring real-time information on aliens entering the United States on student visas. The INS must develop and deploy a comprehensive national tracking system which will facilitate student entry and university compliance, while providing essential, timely information to the INS.

Removing aliens who seek to conduct their illicit activities here in the United States is another integral piece of the national strategy to counter terrorism. The Antiterrorism Act created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court to enable the Justice Department to seek deportation of those aliens upon whom only classified information exists to verify terrorist affiliation, but the Department has yet to refer a case to it. This failure, in combination with subsequent immigration law changes which permit similar procedures to be used during deportation procedures, has the unfortunate effect of calling into question this court's value.

PURPOSE

Chairman Jon Kyl is conducting oversight of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (Antiterrorism Act) signed into law on April 24, 1996. A hearing is scheduled for February 24. The impetus for this particular report was the July 31, 1997 incident in Brooklyn, New York in which two aliens were arrested and subsequently indicted on federal charges for conspiring to bomb a subway station in New York. One of the two suspects, Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer had entered the (133)

United States three times illegally prior to his arrest at the Canadian border, was released on a $5,000 bond after the third entry, and eventually granted voluntary departure. The other suspect, Lafi Khalil, had been allowed to overstay his tourist visa. This incident highlights the importance of immigration policies and procedures in the overall U.S. counterterrorism strategy.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), housed at the Department of Justice (Justice), plays a central role in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. It is the responsibility of INS to determine who may enter, and who shall be excluded, from the United States. The important question, then, is what capabilities and resources the INS has in place to identify, exclude, and remove terrorists. As Presidential Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39), issued in June 1995, reads: "The Secretary of State and the Attorney General *** shall use all legal means available to exclude from the United States persons who pose a terrorist threat and deport or otherwise remove from the United States any such aliens".

The Antiterrorism Act complimented this directive by enacting into law numerous provisions designed to enhance the ability of the relevant departments and agencies to prevent terrorist acts and punish those responsible. Several sections of the law are dedicated to assisting law enforcement, namely Justice, in removing alien terrorists and modifying asylum and criminal alien procedures. Taken together, PDD39 and the Antiterrorism Act recognized that the INS must be central to comprehensive U.S. counterterrorism policies and strategies. The purpose of this report is to explore the extent to which the INS, and those agencies which support its mission, have effectively developed policies and strategies that implement current law.

THE BROOKLYN BOMB PLOT

FACTS

The Brooklyn bomb plot was aimed at detonating four pipe bombs in the Atlantic Avenue subway station, which includes a Long Island Rail Road terminal, and a commuter bus in New York City. The two main suspects are Mezer and Khalil, two Jordanians in their early twenties with Palestinian sympathies.

The Arrests

On July 30, 1997, Mohammed Mossabbah, an Egyptian, approached two Long Island Railroad Police Department officers at the Atlantic Avenue Station in Brooklyn where he attempted to inform the officers that something bad was about to happen. The Railroad police officers, having difficulty understanding the informant, took Mossabbah to the New York Police Department (NYPD) where he was provided with a translator. The NYPD were told that Mezer and Khalil planned to blow up a bus or subway the next day.

At 5:00 am on July 31, the NYPD made a hard entry into the Mezer residence at 248 4th Avenue in Brooklyn. Khalil was shot and wounded after lunging for an officer's gun. After Khalil was shot, Mezer attempted to simultaneously detonate his four homemade pipe bombs, and managed to turn on one of the four switches necessary to activate the bombs before he was critically wounded by police.

During the course of interviews on July 31 and August 1, Mezer admitted to constructing the bombs, stating that he had intended them as suicide bombs and "it must not be my time yet." Mezer further stated that he was sympathetic with, but not a member of, Hamas. He is missing part of a finger that he alleges was shot off by an Israeli soldier. Khalil denied all knowledge of the plot or membership in a terrorist organization. Both suspects considered the Hamas attack in a Jerusalem market which killed 15, including two suicide bombers, to be a heroic deed.

What is thought to be a suicide note was found in Mezer's apartment. In addition, reams of political literature attacking Israel, and a portrait of Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, the militant Egyptian cleric serving a life sentence after being convicted in a plot to bomb the United Nations, the New York F.B.I. building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, and other landmarks.

Also found in Mezer's apartment was a copy of a letter received by the State Department's Office of Diplomatic Security on August 1, the day of the arrests. The letter, written as a message in the name of God, promised suicide bombings against Americans and Jews anywhere in the world if the United States moves its embassy

1 According to the 1996 Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 142 statutes provide the legislative history of immigration to the United States dating back to 1790. Not until 1891 did Congress pass a comprehensive law to nationally control immigration. This law also established the Bureau of Immigration under the Treasury Department for the purpose of administering all immigration laws, including the classes of persons to be excluded from entry and rules to facilitate land border inspections for "ordinary" travelers.

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to Jerusalem or if American troops are not removed from Islamic land in the very near future. Also demanded was the release of Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman; Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, infamous for his role in the World Trade Center blast and plotting to blow up eleven airliners; and Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a Hamas leader jailed in Israel but released to Jordan on September 30, 1997. The letter concludes by taking responsibility for the downing of TWA Flight 800.

Mezer's entry into the United States

On January 14, 1997, Mezer was charged with entering the country without inspection. This was Mezer's third attempted entry along the northwest border from Canada. The first two entries resulted in voluntary exits at the prompting of U.S. border patrol. Mezer was held for four weeks on a $15,000 bond at an INS detention center after the third attempted entry.

On January 27, six months prior to Mezer's arrest for the bomb plot, an immigration judge held deportation proceedings for Mezer in Seattle, Washington. During the course of that hearing, Mezer emphatically asserted that although his parents were Jordanians, he wanted the judge to consider him a Palestinian with Israeli travel documents. He wished to be deported to Canada, which he claimed previously granted him political asylum and where he had applied for residency. He further stated that he could never go back to his country, and if he couldn't go back to Canada, he would apply for asylum in the United States. Later in the hearing, the judge asked the INS attorney whether Mezer had a criminal record. The attorney related a Canadian conviction for assault and apprehension in the Cascades for alien smuggling. Mezer was ordered deported to Canada.

On January 29, the INS filed a motion to reopen Mezer's case because Canada refused to accept him back and no alternative country for deportation was designated. In a hearing on February 6, the judge asked Mezer if he would like to apply for asylum in the United States, to which Mezer said yes, and that he would have the application completed by February 12. Mezer also requested a reduction in his $15,000 bond. On February 14, Mezer's bond was reduced to $5,000 and he was released from INS custody and given an April court date. His application deadline was twice extended.

Not until an April 7, 1997 hearing did Mezer hand deliver his asylum application to the immigration judge, who scheduled an asylum hearing on the merits for January 20, 1998. During the course of the hearing, the judge advised Mezer and his attorney of the new law which bars any asylum applicant who deliberately fabricates an application from any benefits under the Immigration and Nationality Act. If the asylum application is withdrawn 30 days before the asylum hearing, voluntary departure may be granted for up to 120 days. Within 30 days, voluntary departure is limited to 60 days, and the applicant must post a $500 voluntary departure bond. The judge and Mezer's attorney then discussed Canada's refusal to accept Mezer, and concluded that the reason Canada would not accept him back was because its grant of asylum required that if he left Canada, he would not be permitted to return.

Mezer applied for asylum on the grounds of an "imminent danger of death" if returned to Israel. The asylum application states that Mezer was born and raised in Hebron in a family of activists for a Palestinian homeland. Mezer was involved with a student union and demonstrations on the West Bank, and claimed this resulted in numerous arrests, short imprisonments, as well as being beaten, tortured, identified as a security risk, and, during one celebration, having part of his finger shot off by an Israeli soldier. He claims he was targeted for harassment by the Israelis, who repeatedly tried to coerce him into acting as an informant on Hamas. His application further states that he was accused more than once by the Israelis of being a member of Hamas. In his application, Mezer denies the association, but acknowledges he knew some members. He believed he would be killed by Palestinians if he acted as an informant, or eventually by the Israelis if he refused to cooperate. His family then sent him to Canada as a student, in the hope that he could start a new life.

A hearing set for June 23 was to consider the asylum application, but Mezer withdrew the application on June 12 and, according to his attorney, had decided to leave the United States. Mezer did not show. His attorney said she had received a phone call from Mezer who told her he was in Canada and asked if there was anything he could do to get his bond back. The judge responded he might be able to get the bond back if departure could be verified. The judge also decided that the "fair thing to do" if Mezer had not really left the country, was to grant Mezer sixty days (August 23) for voluntary departure. The judge further decided that if Mezer was still in the United States and failed to leave, a deportation order would be entered with alternative destinations of Canada or Jordan.