Ali Mohamed

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For other people of a similar name, see Muhammad Ali (disambiguation).

Ali Abdul Saoud Mohamed, also known as Ali Mohammed (b. 1952) is an acknowledged Al Qaeda operative who was charged with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States' embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In October 2000, he pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to kill nationals of the United States and officers or employees of the U.S. government on account of their official duties, to murder and kidnap, and to destroy U.S. property.

Mohamed is former officer in the Egyptian army's military intelligence units. In the 1980s, he cross-trained with the United States Army military unit, the Green Berets. He left the Egyptian army in 1984. He moved to the United States in 1985, became a U.S. citizen and joined the U.S. Army, serving at Fort Bragg until 1989.^[1] Mohamed's path to citizenship was helped by the fact he married an American woman from Santa Clara, California after a 6 week courtship.[2] According to Cooperative Research, Mohamed was a Drill sergeant at Fort Bragg, and conducted clandestine military and demolition training through the Al Kifah Refugee Center. Cooperative Research asserts that Mohamed trained some of those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

After leaving the Egyptian army, he apparently became an agent for the CIA (supporting the Afghanistan jihad) and an agent of Al Qaeda, which used him as an infiltrator into the U.S. He was very successful — he was hired to teach courses on Arabic culture at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center. While in the United States, he helped train a number of jihadis, like El Sayyid Nosair (who killed Rabbi Meir Kahane, head of the militant, terror linked Jewish Defense League in New York City) and Mahmud Abouhalima, who assisted Ramzi Yousef in his 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.

Ironically, at the time he was training bodyguards for Osama Bin Laden, associating with clerics like Abdel-Rahman, and casing embassies in Africa (like the one in Nairobi, Kenya), he became an FBI informant.

While he was subpoenad in Rahman's trial, Ali Mohammed was not arrested until years later — on 10 September 1998, when he attempted to flee to Egypt after being subpoenaed in the aftermath of the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania. After eight months of imprisonment, Ali Mohammed entered a guilty plea in May 1999. What happened after that is unclear. The trial proceeded, but there is no record of any sentencing or even a conviction. As late as February 20, 2002, CBS News reported that "Mohammad pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing."^[3] There has been no further news of his specific whereabouts or sentencing but he is currently in federal custody at an unspecified location.

Patrick Briley, an American op-ed journalist writing for NewsWithViews.com, has reported that Ali Mohamed was given an early release from prison by direct order from the Bush Administration's DOJ, specifically USAG Alberto Gonzalez.[4]