Emad A. Salem (born circa 1950) is an

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

informant, who was a key witness in the trial of

Ramzi Yousef Ramzi Ahmed Yousef (; born 27 April 1968) is a Pakistani convicted terrorist who was one of the main perpetrators and the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434; he was also a co- ...

, Abdul Hakim Murad, and

Wali Khan Amin Shah Wali Khan Amin Shah () (also known as Osama Turkestani, Osama Azmurai, and Grabi Ibrahim Hahsen ) is a Saudi man who fought with the Afghan Arabs in Afghanistan, and called for the jihad movement to focus on attacking the United States. He had a ...

, convicted in the

World Trade Center bombing The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack carried out by Ramzi Yousef and associates against the United States on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the 1 World Trade Center (1971–2001), North Tower of the Worl ...

of February 26, 1993. He testified that the bomb was built under supervision from the

. An Egyptian army officer, Salem claimed to have fought as a sniper in the

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states led by Egypt and S ...

of 1973. He held 17 Israeli soldiers as prisoners of war respecting their rights under international law. All POWs were ultimately returned unharmed to Israel. At the request of the FBI, Salem had befriended the group of plotters in 1991, meeting them at El Sayyid Nosair's trial. He had recently worked as a

security guard A security guard (also known as a security inspector, security officer, factory guard, or protective agent) is a person employed by a government or private party to protect the employing party's assets (property, people, equipment, money, etc.) ...

at the

Bergdorf Goodman Bergdorf Goodman Inc. is an American luxury department store based in New York City, founded in 1899 by Herman Bergdorf. , it operates a women's store and a men's store across the street from each other on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. ...

department store, and an engineer at a

Best Western Best Western International, Inc. owns the Best Western Hotels & Resorts brand, which it licenses to over 4,700 hotels worldwide. The franchise, with its corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, includes more than 2,000 hotels in North America. ...

hotel in New York. Salem was working as head of hotel security at the Woodward, on the corner of Broadway and Fifty-fifth Street in New York when, in August 1991, he met and offered information to FBI Agent Nancy Floyd, who came to the hotel to inquire about Russian diplomats who might have frequented the hotel. At a later meeting, Salem offered that he knew of an Egyptian in NYC who posed far more dangers to the public than

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

agents. He then named the blind sheikh, Omar Ahmad Ali Abdel-Rahman. It was following this meeting that Salem agreed to work for the FBI as an informant on the blind sheikh's circle centered in NYC mosques. During his time as an FBI informant, Salem recorded hours of telephone conversations with his FBI handlers, and reports submitted in court. In tapes made after the bombings, Salem alleged that an unnamed FBI supervisor declined to move forward on a plan that would have used a "phony powder" to fool the conspirators into believing that they were working with genuine explosives. Federal authorities denied Salem's view of events and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' concluded that the tapes do not make clear the extent to which Federal authorities knew that there was a plan to bomb the World Trade Center, merely that they knew that a bombing of some sort was being discussed. But for the recordings, Emad would have been charged as a co-conspirator. It was recordings that were never provided to the ''New York Times'' that prevented the FBI from charging Emad."Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast,"
Ralph Blumenthal, ''The New York Times'', October 28, 1993, Section A; Page 1; Column 4

Bibliography

Ralph Blumenthal, ''The New York Times'', October 27, 1993, Section A; Page 1; Column 4

Ralph Blumenthal, ''The New York Times'', October 28, 1993, Section A; Page 1; Column 4

''Reuters'', ''Los Angeles Times'', October 28, 1993, Page 21; Section Part-A; National Desk * ttps://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3DC1E31F932A05753C1A965958260 "Bomb Informer's Tapes Give Rare Glimpse of F.B.I. Dealings,"Richard Bernstein with Ralph Blumenthal, ''The New York Times'', October 31, 1993
"FBI's Tipster Said He Built N.Y. Bomb,"
''Chicago Tribune'', December 15, 1993, Page 7; Section NEWS

Chitra Ragavan, ''U.S. News & World Report'', February 16, 2003

References

External links

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M8QtYTplyk {{DEFAULTSORT:Salem, Emad Date of birth missing (living people) Egyptian emigrants to the United States Egyptian military personnel Egyptian people of the Yom Kippur War 20th-century Egyptian military personnel Federal Bureau of Investigation informants Living people World Trade Center Year of birth missing (living people)