Mahmoud Ahmad is an ex-head of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (also Inter-Services Intelligence or I.S.I.), the principal intelligence body of the nation of Pakistan. Mahmoud Ahmad was known to be in America on regular visits of consultation with senior officals in the U.S. administration in the weeks before and after 9/11 and was with Republican Congressman Porter Goss and Democratic Senator Bob Graham in Washington, discussing Osama bin Laden over breakfast, when the attacks of September 11, 2001 happened.

In early October 2001, Indian intelligence learned that Mahmoud had ordered Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh - the convicted mastermind of the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl - to wire US$100,000 from Dubai to one of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta's two bank accounts in Florida.

Ahmad was later retired from his role in the ISI on 8 October 2001, just prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan.

External links

• Asia Times: 911 and the Smoking Gun - A Real Smoking Gun
• BBC NEWS Profile: Omar Saeed Sheikh
• The Times of India: CIA gets new boss in Porter Goss