FBI Alleges Former School
Bus Driver Linked to Al Qaeda

By Ryan Gray | Associate Editor

MINNEAPOLIS (Sept. 7, 2004) – A former Minnesota school bus driver who held a hazardous material classification on his school bus commercial driver’s license has raised questions as to why the FBI approved his background check, despite having prior knowledge of his suspected terrorist ties and activities.

Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, 41, was indicted on two counts of lying to agents with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in connection with an international terrorism investigation. Elzahabi spent four months as a First Student school bus driver in late 2001, transporting students for the Minneapolis Public Schools. The company fired him in January of 2002 after he failed to report to work, said Jeff Pearson, region vice president with First Student, Inc.

Elzahabi pleaded not guilty in federal court here in mid-July. If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine on each count or both.  

The U.S. District Attorney’s office in Minneapolis said a trial date is pending. A spokesperson said Elzahabi is in U.S. Marshals custody but did not know his exact whereabouts, due to the high-security nature of the case.

The FBI declined comment on the case.

The Charges

In the indictment, the FBI accuses Elzahabi, also known as Abu Kamal al Lubnani, of lying about ties to al Qaeda. It alleges that the Lebanese national attended a military jihad training camp and fought in Afghanistan from 1988 to 1989. The FBI also alleges that he served in combat in Afghanistan from 1991 to 1995 and was an instructor in small arms and sniper skills for other terrorists attending the Khalden training camp outside of Kabul. It was at this time, the FBI says, that Elzahabi became acquainted with Abu Zubaida, a senior al Qaeda associate, and the currently incarcerated Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, al Qaeda’s leading operational planner and organizer and self-confessed mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. Elzahabi also allegedly interacted with Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Raed Hijazi and Bassam Kanj, also known as Abu Aisha. Al Zarqawi is believed to be directing current terrorist attacks against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and remains at large. Hijazi was convicted in Jordan for his part in a failed millennium bombing plot that targeted American and Israeli tourists in the country. Kanj was killed in 2000 by Lebanese troops while he was leading an attempted coup against the government there, an attempt to implement a fundamentalist Islamic state for which the FBI alleges Elzahabi provided military training.

Suspicious Activities

After fighting in Afghanistan and sustaining a gunshot wound to the abdomen, the FBI said Elzahabi moved in 1995 to New York City to seek medical attention. In the latter part of that year, he and a relative opened a repair business, Drive Axle Rebuilders, in Queens. Through the company, Elzahabi is alleged to have received numerous shipments containing large quantities of portable field radios suitable for communications in extreme rural areas.

While the FBI held him in April as a material witness in ongoing terrorism investigations, it says Elzahabi became entangled in lies. The first count against Elzahabi alleges he misled agents when he denied having any knowledge of the containers’ contents. According to the indictment, he was indeed aware that the shipments contained electronic equipment because he opened, repacked and reshipped the contents to Pakistan “and elsewhere.” Count two alleges that he falsely represented his relationship with Hijazi while living in Boston as a taxi cab driver in 1997 and 1998. The FBI says Elzahabi lied about his role in helping Hijazi obtain a Massachusetts driver’s license by supplying his home address and transporting Hijazi to the DMV.

The first record of Elzahabi entering the country was in 1984 on a student visa, when he subsequently paid a Houston woman to marry him so he could obtain his green card. The couple divorced in 1988 and admitted to the fraud. As a result, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initiated formal deportation proceedings. ICE spokesperson Tim Counts confirmed that the agency within the Department of Homeland Security was a member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force but could not comment on Elzahabi’s pending deportation case, citing confidentiality.

First Student and Suspect Meet

After fighting in Chechnya from late 1999 through 2000, the FBI said, Elzahabi re-entered the United States and settled in the Minneapolis area. Pearson said Elzahabi applied with First Student on Sept. 11, 2001, the same day terrorists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. At the time, Elzahabi held a valid Massachusetts driver’s license and school bus CDL, including hazmat clearance. Pearson said, a check of Minnesota DPS records confirms, that Elzahabi received his Minnesota CDL certification prior to his hire date. As a result, Pearson said First Student does not have on file the name of the school where Elzahabi became certified.

Pearson said First Student then sent Elzahabi’s fingerprints to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), as is the case whenever the company has difficulty in verifying an applicant’s identity. The BCA in turn forwarded the prints to the FBI, which cleared Elzahabi to drive.

As for why the FBI failed to red flag Elzahabi during First Student’s driver background investigation, Bureau spokesman Paul McCabe declined comment because the case is a “pending matter.”

Certification Appears Proper

First Student terminated Elzahabi in early January of 2002, after he failed to report back to work for “a number of days” following the winter break, Pearson said, adding that, up until then, First Student documented no problems in his employee file. Records show he passed the school bus driver portion of his CDL on Oct. 17, 2001, a date Pearson said was around the time First Student hired him and he began driving routes. Elzahabi’s Minnesota CDL was issued by the DPS several days after First Student fired him on Jan. 18. McCabe would not comment on the date the FBI approved Elzahabi’s background check.

Elzahabi contacted First Student in February of 2002 to see if he could get his job back, but the request was denied.  Pearson said First Student first became aware of the allegations against Elzahabi from the Minnesota Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper reports in May of 2004, more than two years after Elzahabi left the company.

The paperwork that shows the school or state agency Elzahabi attended to earn his CDL certification no longer exists, said a spokesperson from the Minnesota DPS Driver and Vehicle Services Division. Joan Kopcinski explained that the department’s retention schedule only lasts for six months after a certificate is issued, with the logic that the license is proof enough. “Then in cases like this, you think, ‘why didn’t we keep them forever?” she said.

She added that nothing suspicious or otherwise out of the ordinary appeared on Elzahabi’s CDL.

Ties to Other States?

A further check of Elzahabi’s CDL shows one equipment violation, occurring on Oct. 21, 2002 in Colorado. A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Public Safety denied requests from School Transportation News to obtain Elzahabi’s driving record in Colorado, if one exists, stating that the information is protected and can only be released to law enforcement authorities. Another source said the Colorado DPS could neither confirm nor deny that Elzahabi ever held a CDL in the state.

No mention of Elzahabi spending any time in Colorado is contained in the FBI complaint or the indictment, and the Minnesota DPS said it never received notification from Colorado that Elzahabi obtained a driver’s license there.

First Student, a Cincinnati-based company, employs 19,000 drivers on 15,000 school buses nationwide. The fact that at least one of those drivers may have had connections to Al Qaeda is disturbing to Pearson, but also a sign of how over-stretched background investigators are when attempting to verify a prospective employee’s identity and past.

Reprinted with permission from the September 2004 edition of School Transportation News. All rights reserved. Copyright by STN Media Company, Inc.