The FBI Office Of The Inspector General Regarding Mihdhar’s Association With Khallad (Background)

I read from the FBI's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report which was publicly released in June 2006. In this section of the chapter, the report describes the third potential opportunity for the FBI to acquire information about Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar which occurred in January 2001, when a joint FBI/CIA source identified an al Qaeda operative (Khallad) in photographs of the January 2000 Malaysia meetings that Hazmi and Mihdhar had attended. However, the FBI has asserted that it did not learn of the source’s identification of the al Qaeda operative at the Malaysia meetings until much later in 2001, just before the September 11 attacks. This section of the report describes the events surrounding this third opportunity for the FBI to focus on Hazmi and Mihdhar.

A Review of the FBI's Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks: Chapter Five, Part Three (Mihdhar’s Association With Khallad, The Purported Mastermind Of The Cole Attack: Background)