Ammar al-Baluchi

Ammar Al-Baluchi ( ar, عمار البلوشي, ; also transliterated as Amar Al-Balochi, born Ali Abdul Aziz Ali,Shannon, Elaine. ''Time''
Al-Qaeda Moneyman Caught
1 May 2003 29 August 1977) is a Pakistani citizen in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Charges against him include "facilitating the 9/11 attackers, acting as a courier for Osama bin Laden and plotting to crash a plane packed with explosives into the U.S. consulate in Karachi."

A member of the same al-Baluchi clan as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (KSM) and Ramzi Yousef, U.S. officials state that he was a "key Lieutenant" of his uncle KSM who assisted KSM in the execution of the September 11 attacks, and that he told investigators that he had sought help in al-Qaeda's efforts to develop biological weapons to use against its enemies. He reportedly married and then divorced Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani scientist convicted of shooting at US soldiers and incarcerated in the United States. Scroggins, ''Wanted Women'', 2012: p.246

He was arrested in 2003 and held in the Salt Pit, a CIA black site in Afghanistan, during which he was extensively tortured. The CIA used Baluchi as a "training prop" to teach torture techniques to interrogators; trainees took turns shoving his head into a wall in sessions which lasted for hours, causing him brain damage. He was also doused with ice water and kept in stress positions. His torture did not yield the CIA any useful intelligence. Baluchi was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in 2006. In 2018, the United Nations called for his immediate release from arbitrary detention.

Early life

Ammar al-Baluchi was born in Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, and is the maternal nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (organizer of the 9/11 attacks) and cousin of Ramzi Yousef, the organizer of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The extended family of al-Baluchi is ethnically Baluchi and originally from Balochistan. The family patriarch and his brother were lay Deobandi preachers. They moved the family to Kuwait in the 1960s. Scroggins, ''Wanted Women'', 2012: p.60

Baluchi grew up in Kuwait but spent most of teenage years in Iranian Baluchistan, Scroggins, ''Wanted Women'', 2012: p.219 but is a citizen of Pakistan. Trained as a computer technician, he dressed in Western clothes and "introduced himself as a businessman", but had been "groomed ... since boyhood" by his cousins and uncles "to join their clandestine war," according to journalist Debra Scroggins. According to a U.S. government biography, his "chief mentor" was his cousin and 1993 World Trade Center bombing orchestrator Ramzi Yousef, "who taught him in the early 1990s in Iran about the importance of war against the West."

He is fluent in English and worked at Mohammed's honey-processing company in Karachi for a while before being hired in 1998 as a computer technician for ''Modern Electronics Corporation'' in Dubai. According to some evidence given at the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, he was "very open-minded and western-oriented", while his ex-wife told investigators he was "a very strict Muslim" who opposed his wife's leaving the home.

Career in jihad

Preparation for 9/11

According to a U.S. government biography, Baluchi "volunteered his services" to uncle KSM in 1997.

According to U.S. officials, the majority of money that came to the Saudi hijackers for the September 11 attacks was transferred through Baluchi and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.
The 9/11 Commission reported that he "helped them with plane tickets, traveler's checks, and hotel reservations", and "taught them about everyday aspects of life in the West, such as purchasing clothes and ordering food". In his defence, Baluchi claims that he often helped people in Dubai with such things to supplement his income, and he had no way of knowing whether any of them were criminals.

On 10 October 1998, Baluchi used his passport to open a bank account with the Emirates Bank International, using the name "Ali" based on his nasab ''Ibn Abdulaziz Ali'' and listing his employer's address with PO box 16958, Jebel Ali, Dubai.

He was then introduced to Marwan al-Shehhi by his uncle, and Shehhi allegedly asked him to help transfer money from Shehhi's company in Dubai to his company in the United States, ostensibly to help avoid banking fees if he transferred the money himself.

In January 2000, an order using Shehhi's credit card had a Boeing 747-400 flight simulator program, a Boeing 767 flight deck video, and some flight attendant literature and flight manuals shipped to Baluchi's work address. Baluchi then shipped them to his uncle to pass onto Shehhi.9/11 Commission Report Findings

On 18 April, Baluchi sent a wire transfer of $5,000 to Adel Rafeea, the administrator of the Islamic Center of San Diego, from the Wall Street Exchange Centre in Dubai, using his PO Box, passport and listing his phone number as 0506745651. Rafeaa later claimed that Nawaf al-Hazmi had asked him to accept the money on his behalf.

Tracing the calls made to Baluchi's phone number, authorities discovered that he had received 16 calls from 28 to 30 June from a pre-paid Voicestream mobile purchased in Manhattan on 4 June. The phone was deactivated on 11 July, and authorities allege it belonged to Atta, while Baluchi insisted that he only ever spoke with Shehhi, who had hired him. Around this time, Baluchi complained to Mohammed that he couldn't do all this additional work himself, and his uncle told him that Mustafa al-Hawsawi would co-ordinate with him to act as an assistant.

On 29 June, a man named "Isam Mansur" wired $5,000 to the Western Union at 1440 Broadway in New York, where Shehhi picked it up. This is alleged to have been Baluchi, since two later direct payments into Shehhi's Sun Trust account from the Exchange Center, a $10,000 payment to Shehhi on 18 July from "Isam Mans''u''r" and a $9,500 5 August payment from "Isam Mans''ou''r", gave Baluchi's PO Box number.

On 8 August, Baluchi opened a bank account at Dubai Islamic Bank, using his name, passport and phone number. A $20,000 payment from Baluchi's bank account to Shehhi's Sun Trust account on 29 August gave a phone number one digit different from the one given by Isam Mansour on 5 August.

A $70,000 payment was made to Shehhi's account by "Hani (Fawaz Trading)" on 17 September from the same exchange centre. Hani gave a telephone number one digit removed from the one Baluchi used on the transfer from his bank account on 29 August.

In September, Hani Hanjour went to Dubai, where Baluchi gave him $3,000 to open a new bank account, and later deposited $5,000 in the account which Hanjour later accessed from ATMs in the United States. When Ahmed al-Ghamdi went to Dubai, Baluchi helped him purchase a cell phone. It is believed nine of the hijackers met with him in Dubai and received various levels of aid.

The 9/11 Commission Report stated that he "relied on the unremarkable nature of his transactions, which were essentially invisible amid the billions of dollars flowing daily across the globe."

On 27 August 2001, Baluchi applied for a visa to travel to the United States for a week after his employer announced the closing of their Dubai branch, and the government had sent notices informing the employees their work permits had been rescinded and they had to leave the country. He was declined since he appeared to be an economic immigrant, and instead moved back home to Pakistan a few days before the attacks.

Post-9/11

Moving back in with his parents in Karachi, Pakistan, Baluchi saw his uncle several times when he came to visit. According to a short biography written by the United States government's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), after the Taliban was initially driven from power after the 9/11 attack, al-Balouchi assisted KSM in organizing the movement of al-Qaeda operatives and their families to safehouses in Pakistan.
* According to US government information, KSM had Balouchi be the "communications intermediary" between al-Qaeda and "shoe bombers" Richard Reid and Saajid Badat. In early 2002 Balouchi helped his uncle "prepare operatives" for travel from Pakistan to the United States, "ostensibly to carry out attacks".
* Another plan was to hijack airliners and crash them into London's Heathrow airport, but this plan was set aside in order to focus on a plan to bomb the US Consulate and other Western targets in Karachi. Scroggins, ''Wanted Women'', 2012: p.252
* He also worked with his uncle to prepare Majid Khan and others for travel to the United States to conduct terrorist operations.
* Balouchi reportedly sent Majid Khan to Thailand in late 2002 to deliver $50,000 to finance a plan by Jemaah Islamiya leader Hambali (Riduan Isamuddin) to attack US and Israeli targets in Southeast Asia.
He later told investigators he helped his uncle arrange travel visas for people, but didn't know whether any of them were militants or not. In August 2002, the FBI questioned Abdul Samad Din Mohammed, the brother-in-law of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He reported that Baluchi was often in the company of his uncle, and would pick people up from the airport. His uncle KSM was arrested in Rawalpindi on 1 March 2003. Baluchi spent the next two months with Walid bin 'Attash. According to US reports, following his uncle's arrest Baluchi took charge of some of the new attacks being planned.

Marriage

Baluchi also married Aafia Siddiqui. She was accused of being an al-Qaeda member and in February 2010 was convicted of assaulting with a deadly weapon and attempting to kill U.S. soldiers and FBI agents who were seeking to interrogate her while she was in custody, claimed to be married to Baluchi.Al-Qaeda Woman? Putting Aafia Siddiqui on Trial
''TIME'', 18 January 2010 The marriage was confirmed by Pakistani and US intelligence,The mystery of Dr Aafia Siddiqui
''The Guardian'', 24 November 2009 a defense psychologist, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's family. (Siddiqui's family denies she was married to Baluchi.)

According to the FBI, after her arrest, Aafia Siddiqui told them that after she learned she was wanted by the US government she had gone into hiding around late March 2003 with the al-Baluchi clan. Divorced at the time, she stated she married Baluchi out of religious piety, since she "could not live in the same house with an unmarried male" (namely Baluchi) she married him. Their marriage was held in Hub Chowki outside of Karachi in the inner courtyard of Balouchi's house, with female al-Baluchi family members present. Siddiqui describes Balouchi as very kind to her, "a good man who is wrongly accused". (Siddiqui later repudiated all statements given to the FBI.) Scroggins, ''Wanted Women'', 2012: p.245–6

The marriage lasted only a couple of months. According to one of KSM's uncles, Mohammed Hussein, Baluchi became alienated with Aafia's "liberal way of life". Aafia told the FBI that Baluchi divorced her after he was arrested. Scroggins, ''Wanted Women'', 2012: p.253

Capture and treatment in US custody

Siddiqui was arrested 29 April 2003 in Karachi along with al-Attash. Scroggins, ''Wanted Women'', 2012: p.251
Baluchi had a copy of a letter to Osama bin Laden from Saudi scholars in his pocket, a computer disk containing a draft of a letter to bin Laden, two images of the September 11 attacks, and a perfume bottle containing low-concentration cyanide used to bleach and perfume clothes. Baluchi was also accused of discussing the possibility of exporting explosives to the United States through textile companies, but claims to have no knowledge of what conversation is being referenced. The arrests led to the arrests of Jawad al-Bashar and Farzand Shah. On 7 November 2003, a detainee was interrogated and said that Mohamed Atta and Ramzi bin al-Shibh