Thread by @DavidCranmerUn1

Theodore "Ted" Shackley (left) was a key CIA contact for the Safari Club

The United States was not a formal member of the group, but was involved to some degree, particularly through its Central Intelligence Agency. Henry Kissinger is credited with the American strategy of supporting the Safari Club implicitly — allowing it to fulfill American

objectives by proxy without risking direct responsibility This function became particularly important after the U.S. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 and the Clark Amendment in 1976, reacting against covert military actions orchestrated within the government's

Executive branch. The creation of the Safari Club coincided with the consolidation of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). The BCCI served to launder money, particularly for Saudi Arabia and the United States—whose CIA director in 1976, George H. W. Bush, had a

personal account.

"The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George Bush as the head of the CIA, Adham transformed a small Pakistani merchant bank, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a

worldwide money-laundering machine, buying banks around the world in order to create the biggest clandestine money network in history."

In June 1999 CIA chief George Tenet named Black director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC).[4] In this capacity, Black served as the CIA Director's Special Assistant for Counterterrorism as well as the National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism.[5] Black's

promotion was a part of Tenet's "grand plan" for dealing with al-Qaeda. Black was the operational chief in charge of this effort. Tenet also put "Richard," one of his own assistants, in charge of the CTC's bin Laden tracking unit. Black still headed the CTC at the time of the

attacks of September 11, 2001. Formally known as the Bin Ladin Issue Station, it was codenamed Alec Station, after Michael Scheuer's son's name, as referred to by DIA's Able Danger liaison Anthony Shaffer.[3] By 1999, the unit's staff had nicknamed themselves the "Manson Family",

"because they had acquired a reputation for crazed alarmism about the rising al-Qaeda threat". Al-Fadl had lived in the US in the mid-1980s, and had been recruited to the Afghan mujaheddin through the al-Khifa center at the Farouq mosque in Brooklyn. Al-Khifa was the interface

of Operation Cyclone, the American effort to support the mujaheddin, and the Peshawar, Pakistan-based Services Office of Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden, whose purpose was to raise recruits for the struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Tenet appointed Richard Blee, a "fast-track executive assistant" who "came directly from Tenet's leadership group", to have authority over the Station. "Tenet quickly followed this appointment with another: He named Cofer Black as director of the entire CTC."

By mid-September, it had been briefed to CIA operational level personnel, and to [the] NSA [National Security Agency], the FBI, and other partners." The strategy "was called simply, 'the Plan'."

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice concluded that the armed Predator was required, but evidently not ready. It was agreed to recommend to the CIA to resume reconnaissance flights. The "previously reluctant" Tenet then ordered the Agency to do so. The CIA was now

"authorized to deploy the system with weapons-capable aircraft, but for reconnaissance missions only", since the host nation (presumably Uzbekistan) "had not agreed to allow flights by weapons-carrying aircraft".

After 9/11, "Hendrik V.", and later "Marty M.", were chiefs of Alec Station's Bin Laden Unit. The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a CIA-led operation with Joint Special Operations Command, commonly known as JSOC, coordinating the Special Mission

Units involved in the raid. In addition to SEAL Team Six, participating units under JSOC included the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne)—also known as "Night Stalkers"—and operators from the CIA's Special Activities Division, which recruits heavily from former.

JSOC Special Mission Units