New 9/11 Timeline Categories: Black Hawk Down and Shoe Bombing

Two new categories have been added to the 9/11 Timeline.

One of them is called 1993 Somalia Fighting and focuses on the lead-up to the infamous Black Hawk Down incident. Basically, it seems that associates of Osama bin Laden trained the Somalis in techniques to shoot down helicopters they had learned from the US and the British during the Soviet-Afghan War. This is probably why the Somalis suddenly got good at shooting down helicopters.

The second is called 2001 Attempted Shoe Bombing and looks at the failed December 2001 bombing of a transatlantic jet by Richard Reid and related operations. There are a number of interesting points here: the bombers were under surveillance for years, one of them was recruited by British intelligence informer Abu Hamza, and at least one of their contacts was arrested shortly after 9/11.

Expect to see some additions to these categories in the next week or two.

New Categories in A. Q. Khan Timeline

Four new categories have been added to the A. Q. Khan Timeline. They are:

Britain, which details the nuclear proliferation network’s activities in Britain (they bought a lot of stuff there) and British investigations and knowledge of it.

The Netherlands, which details the nuclear proliferation network’s activities in the Netherlands (Khan worked there and stole secrets at the start of his career) and Dutch investigations and knowledge of it.

The United Arab Emirates, which details the nuclear proliferation network’s numerous activities in UAE and UAE investigations (shut down) and knowledge of it.

Obviously, there is a lot of material that is still to be added here, but we have made a decent start.

There is also a category called Atif Amin, who headed a British customs investigation into the network in 1999-2000. Like just about every other investigation into Khan, it was frustrated.