Al Mihdhar: we were followed to US

The CIA admits tht it was following alleged American 77 hijackers Khalid Al Mihdhar and Nawaf Al Hazmi around Asia in early 2000. Together with foreign intelligence services it tracked Al Mihdhar from Yemen, to Dubai (where a photocopy of his passport and US visa was secretly made), Kuala Lumpar and Bangkok and it tracked Al Hazmi (and his younger brother) from Karachi to Kuala Lumpar and Bangkok. The CIA then claims it lost them in Bangkok, a few days before they boarded a plane to the States, and then did nothing when it subsequently learned they had travelled to LAX.

There are already several problems with the claim that the CIA lost them in Bangkok, for example:
(1) It seems implausible - if they were worth mounting a major operation against, why give up on them when they entered the States?

(2) Recently declassified notes taken by one of Rumsfeld's aides on 9/11 indicate that they were actually followed after they were allegedly lost - the aide wrote that 3 individuals on American 77 "have been followed since millenium and Cole". See here for more details:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/KJF/15

In addition:
(3) I just found this passage in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's substitution for testimony in the Moussaoui trial. It concerns a report made by Al Mihdhar to KSM in late July/August of 2000:
"Mihdhar also gave a general report to Sheikh Mohammed, telling him of their problems with enrolling in language schools and that they believed they were surveilled from Thailand to the US." (p. 20, item 37)
Link: http://www.rcfp.org/moussaoui/pdf/DX-0941.pdf

There is clearly a tension here between the CIA's version - they weren't followed by us or any friendly intelligence service - and Al Mihdhar's version - we were followed. There is a possibility that they were followed by an intelligence service unfriendly to the US at that point, for example Syrian intelligence (which might have been following some of the other hijackers at one point), but I don't see anything specific to indicate this.

Obviously, one might sometimes believe one is being surveilled when one is in fact not being surveilled, but both Al Mihdhar and Al Hazmi had several years' experience as covert operatives and might reasonably be expected to have some counter-surveillance skills.

As a result of this I'm finding the "we lost them in Bangkok" excuse to be increasingly unlikely.

for finding a statement attributed to Almihdhar!

What is your take?
Why would they have been surveilled and nothing was done?
Btw: Atta was surveilled as well before entering the US.

How do you explain it?
Your hypothesis?

If we exclude the OCT, which I think is full of holes, then we have three options:

(1) MIHOP - I'm not a fan of plane swapping, pods, etc., but there's a possibility that, say, a governmental agency wanted to LIHOP but realised the pilots weren't much cop, so it provided them with extra flight training on the sly;
(2) LIHOP;
(3) Sub-LIHOP. For example, the CIA knew more about the hijackers than they were letting on, but actually they were trying to double some of them and the hijackers outfoxed them.

I keep changing my mind, but I think I'll go for (3) today. There was actually an attempt to double a member of the Hamburg cell (Darkazanli), so why wouldn't they try again in the States? Also, the story with the petty thief and Darkazanli's documents indicates the CIA was doing something illegal in Hamburg it didn't tell the Germans about. AFAIK the CIA wouldn't operate illegally in Germany if it wasn't quite a big deal. There is some "expert" support for this, which I have a look at here:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/KJF/19

The mains problems I have with the OCT (regarding the US inteligence community being as stupid as they allegedly were) are:
(1) There is a threshhold at which I stop believing that known terrorists could commit a terrorist act. In the London bombings, we were looking at a couple of people whose names had been mentioned in a phone call and a phone number of a third bomber; this is fine by me. In the case of 9/11 intelligence agencies knew the names/phone numbers/details of several, perhaps even most of the hijackers (based merely on what we know now - there could well be more) and the CIA had even conducted a major operation against some of them. This is just too much for me to swallow.
(2) Al Mihdhar says he was followed.
(3) Rumsfeld was told on 9/11 that 3 of the American 77 hijackers had been followed "since millenium and Cole".
(4) The NSA was obviously tapping some of their calls.
(5) The way Able Danger was shut down.
(6) The CIA front company operating out of the same hangar as Huffman.
(7) The attempt to double Darkazanli and the mysterious/comic way his documents showed up.
(8) How can Al Mihdhar get another Saudi passport if they already knew he was a terrorist? The Saudis don't give passports to known terrorists; they have a list called "known terrorists who can't get a passport".
(9) Jarrah's stop in Dubai.
(10) According to 9/11 staff director Eleanor Hill, the hijackers were "right in the centre of the FBI's counterterrorist coverage".
(11) The CIA got Al Shehhi's phone number in 1999.
(12) The way the 9/11 Commission glosses over all of this. There's no mention of Able Danger, Volz, Britannia Aviation, the UAE/US dispute over Jarrah (they just mention he was stopped, omitting the UAE claims), they didn't see the NSA intercept transcipts, there's a million things left out.

There's a little but more, but that's plenty for me to say the CR is a whitewash and there's lots we aren't being told.

blew himself up in a raid in sanaa:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1819380.stm

I do not want to stop your deep thoughts, but when I take into account that the adress was well known at least since 1998, that "Nairobi" and "Cole" happened, that O`neill visited the place and was drawn back, that Midhar was on the Kuala Lumpur video, that he organized the Hamburg action "let us go to Florida and learn how to fly"-

so all well known to the CIA

and now we know how Al Midhar liked to live in direct private-public partnership with main offices of the CIA

is it completely out of reach that this man is paid from a payrole deposited in Langley,VA.?

Especially since he was seen alive after 9/11

But maybe it is pure conspiracy theory because the fabts above are all just coincidence.

"Double" means turn them in to double agents. I'm not saying that they were definitely trying to do this, I'm just saying it's a possibility I can't dismiss yet.