Didn't Lindh's attorneys portray him as just a simple foto soldier who wasn't privy to anything of importance?

Daily News Exclusive

By GREG B. SMITH DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

John Walker Lindh had a key role in busting an alleged Buffalo-area terror cell, helping the FBI connect its members to an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, the Daily News has learned.

A source told The News that Lindh - who agreed to cooperate with authorities in exchange for a lighter sentence on terror-related charges - was asked about the alleged terrorist cell in upstate Lackawanna after authorities ran into a dead end.

The FBI had gotten a letter in June 2001 from a "concerned Yemenite" alleging that eight U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent were training at an Al Qaeda camp, a source told The News.

After a year of surveillance, the bureau confronted some of the men in July. They denied training at the camp, and the bureau had little evidence to contradict their story, a source said.

But Lindh, a Californian who went to Pakistan to pursue Islamic studies and ended up joining the Taliban, began cooperating July 15.

He is scheduled to be sentenced today in Alexandria, Va., to 20 years in prison for supporting Taliban. The original charges could have put him behind bars for life.

The FBI showed him photos of the eight men named in the letter, a source familiar with the probe said, because he trained at the al Farooq camp run by Osama Bin Laden's terror group - the camp where the Lackawanna suspects allegedly trained in 2001.

Lindh could not identify the men because he arrived just after the men had left, the source said, but remembered that people in the camp talked about a group from the Buffalo area.

As a result, the FBI confronted one of the suspects, Mukhtar Al-Bakri, in Bahrain on Sept. 11, the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Al-Bakri admitted he and the others were at the camp and had heard an anti-American, anti-Israeli speech by Bin Laden, the source said.

Soon, Sahim Alwan also confirmed the men's presence at al Farooq, and on Sept. 13, the FBI began arresting the alleged cell members.

They are being held on charges of supporting a terrorist group - the same charges Lindh faced.

More attacks planned

Lindh also told authorities that one of his instructors said the Sept. 11 attacks were the first wave of what were supposed to be three assaults on the U.S., according to FBI and intelligence reports obtained by news services.

The instructor said the second wave, a biological attack or an assault on a nuclear facility, would come at the beginning of Ramadan - mid-November 2001 - and "make America forget about the first attack," Lindh quoted him as saying, according to the reports.

He said he was told the third wave would take place early this year, but provided no details.

Lindh's lawyers have said little about his cooperation, confirming only that he has been debriefed several times in the last three months by law enforcement and military agencies.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2002