September 20, 1998: Important Al-Qaeda Leader Arrested in Germany

Mamdouh Mahmud Salim. [Source: FBI]Mamdouh Mahmud Salim (a.k.a. Abu Hajer), an al-Qaeda operative from the United Arab Emirates connected to the 1998 US embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998, is arrested near Munich, Germany. [PBS, 9/30/1998] The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry will later call him bin Laden’s “right hand man,” and “head of bin Laden’s computer operations and weapons procurement.” He is also “the most senior-level bin Laden operative arrested” up until this time. [New York Times, 9/29/2001; US Congress, 7/24/2003, pp. 51 ] Author Lawrence Wright will later note that bin Laden and Salim worked together in Afghanistan in the 1980s, “forging such powerful bonds that no one could get between them.” Salim was also one of the founding members of al-Qaeda (see August 11-20, 1988) and bin Laden’s personal imam (i.e., preacher). [Wright, 2006, pp. 131, 170] Starting in 1995, Salim had been making frequent visits to Germany. Mamoun Darkazanli, who lived in Hamburg and associated with Mohamed Atta’s al-Qaeda cell, had signing powers over Salim’s bank account. Both men attended al-Quds mosque, the same Hamburg mosque as hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi. [Vanity Fair, 1/2002] The FBI learns much from Salim about al-Qaeda, and this information could have been useful to the US embassy bombings investigation. However, the FBI is unwilling to brief their German counterparts on what they know about Salim and al-Qaeda. [New York Times, 9/29/2001]