TAKING THE WAR TO THE ENEMY

An attack took place on January 25, 1993 near the entrance of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia where two CIA employees were murdered and three others wounded. The perpetrator, Mir Aimal Kasi, shot CIA employees in their cars as they were waiting at a stoplight.

Kasi fled the country and was placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, sparking a four year international manhunt. He was captured by FBI agents in Pakistan in 1997 and rendered back to the United States to stand trial. He admitted that he shot the victims of the attack, and was subsequently found guilty of capital and first-degree murder, and executed by lethal injection in 2002.

Kasi's stated motives were political, and he claimed they stemmed from watching Gulf War news coverage of US warplanes bomb Iraqi troops during their 1991 withdrawal from Kuwait. "Once the Iraqis withdrew from Kuwait then the continued bombings of Iraq were not justified … I did not want to become famous. I wanted to punish those who do wrong things against Muslim countries like Iraq."

He thought that by attacking CIA workers he could somehow change policy: "I am not proud of what happened. I feel sad [that] the people who came under attack were not powerful people … I wish powerful people would have come under the attack, then it would have been better. I wanted to shoot [then-CIA Director] James Woolsey but was not able to find him, or his timing of coming or going to CIA. If I had found [former CIA Director Robert] Gates I would have attacked him, as these are people who make up policies for CIA or US government."[3]

World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993, authorities were eager to determine whether Kasi had acted alone or was part of a larger terrorist network.[4]. The CIA and FBI were unable to find any links to terrorist organizations,[12] and participants in Kasi's murder trial were prohibited by the court from using the label "terrorist" in relation to the defendant.[5] Kasi denied any connection to foreign terrorists and said that he had worked alone.[3]

FBI agent Bradley J. Garrett, who played a leading role in the capture of Kasi—as well as that of Ramzi Yousef, the man behind the World Trade Center bombing—noted a similarity in their motives. "It was almost illogic logic … It wasn't personal. It wasn't like hating individuals. It was more institutional."[4]

Before Kasi's capture and confession, some US sources speculated that the attack was related to undisclosed family links to the CIA.[13] Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistani intelligence (ISI), alleged that Kasi had once worked for the CIA and was motivated by revenge. Gul—who had worked closely with the CIA during the Soviet-Afghan War—told a reporter in August, 1997 that "Aimal Kasi was an agent of the CIA … He was working inside of Pakistan and outside of Pakistan."[3] Kasi in turn denied these allegations, stating, "I did not work for CIA … I had mujahideen friends who worked with the ISI people in bringing [CIA-supplied] arms from military bases in Pakistan to the mujahideen arms depot [in Afghanistan]. I sometimes used to go with them. That was all."[3]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing