The Sunday Times of London has an original piece on terrorist Louai al-Sakka, a 34-year-old Syrian native currently in prison in Turkey. Before he starting talking from his Turkish jail cell, Al-Sakka had been virtually unknown by democratic governments and intelligence analysts. Now, not only does Al-Sakka claim to be a top Al Qaeda operative, but, according to his lawyer, “He was the number one networker for Al-Qaeda in Europe, Iran, Turkey and Syria.” 

The Times points out that it's impossible to tell if what Al-Sakka is saying is smoke and mirrors. Equally important is whether Al-Sakka really was unknown or whether he was unknown by his true identity. When Al-Sakka was arrested in Turkey in 2005, he was working under the assumed identity of a Turk named Erkan Ozer. And this was only one of Al-Sakka's sixteen identities, according to the Times. He also "had plastic surgery to disguise his face."

As Rohan Gunaratna points out in "Inside Al Qaeda," one of the first things a terrorist operative does when joining the jihad is take on a false identity. The fact that Al-Sakka had sixteen identities ought to make every U.S. official with a Customs and Immigration badge cringe. If that doesn't, this should:

One of Sakka’s chief roles was to organise [sic] passports and visas for the volunteers to make their way to Afghanistan through Pakistan. His ability to keep providing high-quality forged papers made Turkey a main hub for Al-Qaeda movements, his lawyer says. The young men came to Turkey pretending to be on holiday and Sakka’s false papers allowed them to “disappear” overseas. 

Al-Sakka, through his lawyer, lays claim to many heinous terror acts including beheading British citizen Ken Bigley. He also offers a different version of 9/11 events: telling the Times that the hijacker who piloted American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon was Nawaf al-Hazmi, and not Hani Hanjour. 

According to Sakka, Nawaf al-Hazmi was a veteran operative who went on to pilot the plane that hit the Pentagon. Although this is at odds with the official account, which says the plane was flown by another hijacker, it is plausible and might answer one of the mysteries of 9/11.

The Pentagon plane performed a complex spiral dive into its target. Yet the pilot attributed with flying the plane “could not fly at all” according to his flight instructors in America. Hazmi, on the other hand, had mixed reviews from his instructors but they did remark on how “adept” he was on his first flight. 

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