How much did Afghan leader know?
Cable says Massoud learned bin Laden was planning U.S. attack From Mike Boettcher and Henry Schuster CNN Thursday, November 6, 2003 Posted: 10:04 PM EST (0304 GMT) (CNN) — Assassinated Afghan opposition leader Ahmed Shah Massoud had “limited knowledge” of a planned attack against the United States and was warning the West of the threat, according to a newly declassified cable from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, the Taliban’s main opposition, was killed September 9, 2001, by a bomb inside a video camera during an interview at his headquarters with two Tunisian al Qaeda operatives posing as journalists. The cable, written in November 2001, was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. (Text of cable, PDF) It was based on an interview with a classified source and reads: “Through Northern Alliance intelligence efforts, the late commander Massoud g
