al Qa’idah town, Yemen
(common spelling: al Qaeda)
(Last updated 07 Aug 2020, 19:10 hours GMT)
On 26 September 1997 I was taken by Mohamad A Salem (the general manager of the Hayel Saeed Anam Group HQ in Taiz) to a clandestine and unscheduled meeting at a secluded base in Yemen. Since April 2015 I have suspected that meeting was with members of the al Qaeda terrorist organisation, a suspicion I immediately reported to the British counter terrorism authorities.
In November 2017 I found that meeting location on google maps; it is 1-mile from a town called al Qa’idah.
My Reporting History About said Meeting and the
Parallel Disinformation Published in the Main Stream Media:
February 2009 I telephoned British Counter Terrorism Command (CTC) and described events during my 1997 visit to Yemen. My focus and main suspicion at that time was my dinner meeting with Yousef on 25 September, the day before my visit to the secluded base. I guess that I also described my journey to the secluded base. CTC listened to my report without comment until I mentioned the name of the company I was visiting - YemPak. The moment I said “YemPak” the line clicked and a different person simply said “carry on” (describing events). There was no follow-up from SO15 to this call - I wasn’t contacted back and the next day I joined the British army.
April 2015 Having found previously thought lost photos of my 1997 visit to Yemen I realise that the man introduced to me as “the Engineer” was in fact Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I immediately reported this matter to the British Counter Terrorism Command (CTC. Over the course of several calls to the CTC I repeated the details of my experiences in Yemen that I'd given in 2009 and gave a detailed description of my journey to the clandestine meeting I attended in 1997. That description was of a half-hour drive north of Taiz and a short drive further cross country, after turning right off the main road. I very specifically stated I now suspected this meeting was with members of al Qaeda. CTC expressed no interest in my report and have never contacted me back.
15 June 2015 Human rights organisation Reprieve made the first public claim about al Qa’idah town that I've since found, stating that there is no connection between al Qa’idah town in Yemen and the terrorist organisation of the same name. Reprieve made this claim in a report on a Yemeni man recently released from the Guantanamo Bay military prison. Their report stated:
"A simple mistake led to Emad [Hassan]’s 13-year ordeal. Bounty hunters abducted him while he was studying in Pakistan, and sold him to US forces for $5,000. In the confusion of interrogation, he told his captors that he knew about ‘Al Qa’idah’, referring to a small village with that name near his hometown in Yemen. As a result, Emad was taken to Guantánamo Bay.”
Whilst this report was not signed it is very significant that supposed human rights attorney Alka Pradhan was employed by Reprieve from 2013 to September 2015. In October 2015 Ms Pradhan became an employee of the US Department of Defense, assigned as a defense attorney to the 9/11 military commission trials. I believe it was Ms Pradhan who introduced the lie about al Qa’idah town having no connection to the al Qaeda terrorist group.
The report with said claim was deleted by Reprieve in December 2019, just after I had advised them by email of my visit to the al Qaeda base besides al Qa’idah town. They have since republished the report on Emad Hassan but ommitting the spurious claim about al Qa’idah town. I suspect that Repieve was unwittingly used by the CIA in an attempt to discredit my claims of visiting an al Qaeda base in Yemen in 1997.
18 September 2015 Newsweek magazine report reported:
"The town [of al Qaidah] has no connection with the Al Qaeda terrorist organizations”
Author: journalist Lauren Walker
22 January 2016 Justin Ames, working for The Velvet Rocket website, visits al Qa’idah town in Yemen and reports catagorically that the town "has absolutely no connection with the Al Qaeda terrorist organisation"
09 May 2017 My first documented description of my 1997 meeting location - sent to the British Counter Terrorism Command (CTC), aka SO15. I describe the location as within ½-hours drive north of Taiz city, and a short drive from the main road
01 November 2017 I found my al Qaeda meeting location on google maps - as I zoomed out I saw the name of the town - al Qaidah. This is a meeting that I have long suspected may have been with al Qaeda, and had said so to SO15 in my 2009 telephone call.
02 November 2017 I emailed a detailed description of my 1997 meeting location besides al Qa’idah town to the British Counter Terrorism Command (CTC), aka SO15
19 December 2017 In a New York Times interview with 9/11 trial defense attorney Ms. Alka Pradan, reporter Jeffrey Stern again claimed that the town of al Qaidah had no connection to the terror group al Qaeda.
09 March 2018 US military investigators working for the defense attorneys (including Alka Pradhan) of the 9/11 military commission trials at Guantanamo Bay contact me expressing great interest in my published reports (about my experiences in Yemen and my subsequent research). They proposed sending a TEAM of Pentagon based 9/11 investigators to Manchester to interview me over a five day period. After initially cooperating fully with them I later declined their invitation due to a lack of trust and confidence in them and the Guantanamo trials.
My Evidence
The image below shows al Qa’idah’s proximity to Taiz city and the Hayel Saeed Anam Group HQ at PO Box 5302, where I was introduced to ‘the Engineer’ - the nome-de-guerre of the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:
My approximate route to al Qaeda al Askariya from the main road is marked by the red dashed line in the image below. The second image with a green route arrow marks the entrance to the al Askariya base and the yellow star marks the building I visited briefly on 26 September 1997:
These images show that the collection of buildings I visited at al Qaeda al Askariya in 1997 was in fact just the entrance to an entire valley which was likely all occupied by the terrorist organisation:
