The Exile

by Adrian Levy

  “More news.”

  “Yes?”

  “America is about to invade Iraq and it says Saddam backs Al Qaeda!”

  The Mauritanian raised his eyebrows, recalling how Osama had sent him and Saif al-Adel to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein during the Sudan years. They had returned empty-handed, complaining that Saddam was “virulently opposed to Osama and Al Qaeda.” Instead, they had gone on to Tehran and arranged tentative access to the Hezbollah camps in the Beqaa Valley, where Al Qaeda would receive training in the use of explosives.

  Iran—not Iraq—had helped Al Qaeda.115

  Despite his current predicament, it was still satisfying to catch the Americans lying.

  One week later: Pik, pik, pik.

  “Yes? I am here.”

  “Zarqawi’s gone!”

  The Mauritanian leaned closer to the pipe.

  “He’s been released with all his men.”

  The Quds Force must have fought tooth and nail with the Iranian Ministry of Justice to secure Zarqawi’s release. The Mauritanian was impressed.

  Several days later all the cell doors were flung open. A Ministry of Justice investigator was touring Evin and wanted to question the Al Qaeda prisoners. Guided to the governor’s office, the Mauritanian spent most of the session focusing on a message a previous inmate had etched into the arm of his chair: “You should endure as YOU are in the right.”

  Was the prisoner part of Zarqawi’s group? the investigator asked. Did he wish to go to Iraq or return to Pakistan?

  “Neither,” the Mauritanian blustered before being led back to his cell.

  Two weeks later the doors were unlocked again. Guards ran down the corridors, shouting: “Prepare yourselves!”

  Assembling in the courtyard, the prisoners filed into waiting buses. The Mauritanian was amazed at the voices and faces he recognized. He had not seen so many Al Qaeda cadres since Osama’s son Mohammed had got married in Tarnak Qila in January 2001.

  “Why are we out?” he asked a guard nervously. Was everyone being shipped to Iraq? “No,” said the worried-looking guard. The ICRC had won entry to Evin and was on its way over. All evidence of the secret Al Qaeda prisoners had to be concealed, whether or not they were part of Zarqawi’s group.

  “Dr. Abdullah?” a guard called out.

  Gingerly, he raised his hand.

  “Not you,” the guard said, marching the Mauritanian to a new, remote wing and an even smaller cell.

  March 19, 2003, Shiraz, Iran

  Saif al-Adel was still at liberty, reunited with his family, plotting war in Iraq, and surrounded by loyalists including his old friends from Cairo, Abu Mohammed al-Masri and Abu al-Khayr al-Masri. After his release from Evin, Zarqawi’s deputy, Khalid al-Aruri, had joined him, along with Sari Shihab, another of Zarqawi’s old jihad friends from Zarqa who in more recent times had become an important facilitator for any Iraq-bound brothers traveling through Iran. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Al Qaeda’s accidental spokesman, had arrived, too. Wanted the world over, as his face loomed large on the 9/11 celebration videos, he had nowhere else to go.

  Saif’s immediate concern in the wake of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad’s arrest was to warn the entire organization against complacency. Al Qaeda Central had been hit hard, and he and the other brothers in Iran needed to help it get back on its feet. He contacted his Syrian courier Yasin and asked him to deliver a message to Dr. al-Zawahiri. Al Qaeda needed to take swift action to overhaul security protocols and examine communication strategies. The Waziristan cells needed to depute a senior Al Qaeda commander to supervise Osama’s security, as his current companions were “undoubtedly compromised.” Recruited by Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti was likely to be tracked and seized.

  Saif sent a second messenger, the Pakistani Hassan Ghul, to track down Zarqawi, who he knew through Aruri had been released from Evin. If he had not already done so, he should cross the border back into Kurdish-held territory and the no-fly zone. In the early hours of March 20, news broadcasts had flashed across their TV. U.S. bombers were over Baghdad. Carrying on from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, Operation Iraqi Freedom was under way. Al Qaeda had its chance to hit back, Saif told his men. “Zarqawi has to harry the American forces.” The moment of retribution had at last arrived.

  Others aligned to Al Qaeda were advocating the same. Tactician Abu Musab al-Suri, the redheaded Syrian, who now had a $5 million bounty on his head and was hiding in Marivan, close to the Iraqi border, was finalizing his 1,600-page treatise entitled The Call for Global Islamic Resistance that, among other things, considered what had gone wrong with previous failed jihads, including the popular Syrian uprising of the early 1980s.116 Based on his own experiences and research, and an analysis of Koranic writings, the Syrian was laying out a plan, stage by stage. The aim, he wrote, was to “bring about the largest number of human and material casualties possible for America and its allies.” Iraq was one theater—but there were others. Al Qaeda should not focus solely on large-scale spectaculars but should also encourage acts of terrorism by individuals or small groups as a “leaderless resistance” that would wear down the enemy. The “strategic goal” was the declaration of a caliphate.

  In the early hours of April 23, Saif, his family members, and his friends were woken by the sound of splintering wood as a column of armed Iranian intelligence officials charged through the door, one of them filming the raid.117 The women and children were gathered in the living room, while the men were put in a van that drove to Tehran, each one being dropped off at a different location.118

  A man of action, Saif now found himself in an underground cell with nothing to do but hope that Zarqawi would make good progress in Iraq and that several bombing operations he had set in motion in Saudi Arabia would still come off. When the guards gave him a Koran, Saif thought of the Mauritanian, his old friend, who he had often ragged about keeping his head stuck in books when he could have been fighting. He tried to pray but could not concentrate.

  Eventually, he managed to get a pencil and some yellowing greaseproof paper. He began sketching out a small biography of Zarqawi, on whom he pinned Al Qaeda’s future hopes, writing that he had sent Zarqawi firm guidance in the note carried by Hassan Ghul: “In brief, our advice is a clear objective, a sound banner, clear legitimate means, the ability to take advantage of the circumstances and resources.”119

  If he kept these things in mind, Zarqawi would win “victory, power and the satisfaction of the Lord of the Universe.”

  Although incarcerated, Saif was already looking to the future. “We expect that Syria and Lebanon will face similar circumstances,” he advised. “If this takes place, it will give the Islamic action a vast theater to maneuver in.” A new leadership for Islamic nations would emerge and “jihad [would] enable this leadership to reestablish the Islamic Caliphate once more.”

  An Islamic state would overcome injustice. “May God grant us success,” he wrote in the gloom of his cell.

  May 3, 2003, United Nations Office, Geneva, Switzerland

  The fortunes of Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush’s special presidential envoy for Afghanistan, continued to rise. Rumors were rife that he would soon be announced as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, and with the war in Iraq into its third month there were more reasons than ever to improve relations with neighboring Iran.

  Fifteen months had passed since the Axis of Evil speech, and Iran’s influence over the emerging Shia militia in Iraq meant that Tehran could no longer be ignored.120

  Khalilzad had also seen new intelligence reports about Al Qaeda being present in significant numbers in Iraq, wreaking havoc in operations that the CIA believed were being steered from Iran—contrary to Colin Powell’s public assertions to the United Nations.

  On May 3, Khalilzad and Ryan Crocker, who was by now an interim envoy to Afghanistan, met again with Mohammad Javad Zarif, who had become Iran’s deputy foreign minister. This was their fourth meeting in as many months. Al Qaeda fighters should be turned
over to the United States, the Americans suggested. The evidence that Iran was still sheltering them and facilitating their Iraq operations was overwhelming.

  Zarif informed the Americans that Iran had been ready to offer Al Qaeda’s military council and family to the United States only for this extraordinary proposal to be wrecked by President Bush’s inflammatory State of the Union address in January 2002.

  Khalilzad and Crocker had long suspected this was the case, but this was the first time Zarif had spelled it out. Now, they tried to get Zarif to understand the urgency of the situation. Could they put the past behind them and get the deal back on track? Al Qaeda was not only starting to cause problems for U.S. forces in Iraq; the CIA had intelligence that showed how cells based in Iran were also preparing to attack Western targets in Saudi Arabia. “They were there, under Iranian protection, planning operations,” recalled Crocker.121

  Zarif advised the Americans that Tehran was deeply divided. Reformists were anxious to restart “talks about everything—including Al Qaeda.” However, other factions—which Crocker knew referred primarily to the Quds Force—had other plans.

  On May 4, there was movement. The Swiss ambassador to Iran, Tim Guldimann, who represented American interests in the country, faxed the U.S. State Department in Washington, claiming to summarize the dominant view inside Iran’s government.122 Shocked by the scenes broadcast from Baghdad, dissenters worried about regime change in Iran were prepared to start wide-ranging talks, in which nothing would be precluded.

  Guldimann suggested that a “Grand Bargain” might be possible if Iran received diplomatic recognition, and if some elements of its domestic nuclear-power generation program were legitimized. At their next meeting in Geneva, Zarif would let it be known that this “Bargain” could take the form of a swap: the leaders of Mujahedin-e-Khalq, an Iranian group that the Quds Force said were terrorists and were harbored by Saddam Hussein, in exchange for Al Qaeda’s military council and bin Laden’s family. This was just what Crocker and Khalilzad had hoped for, and they eagerly referred it up the ladder to Washington, expecting a positive response.

  Almost immediately, Washington hawks began circling with senior officials at the Pentagon voicing skepticism that Iran’s Reformists actually had the power to conclude such a deal. The U.S. State Department also seemed unimpressed. Khalilzad said: “I asked around and it was made clear to me that no one cared much for this deal. It was seen as the Swiss ambassador’s power play rather than a genuine offer.”

  On May 8, Vice President Dick Cheney’s and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s reluctance to strike a deal with Iran appeared to be vindicated when Saif al-Adel’s men mounted simultaneous attacks inside Saudi Arabia, hitting three residential compounds popular with Western workers, creating mayhem, killing more than thirty people (including nine Americans), and injuring 160. It was the largest number of U.S citizens killed by Al Qaeda since the 9/11 attacks, and Rumsfeld revealed that the United States had intercepted phone conversations implicating Al Qaeda members in Iran as being behind the bombings. Without any further discussion with Zarif, the Bush administration cut off the back channel to Tehran. The “Grand Bargain” was dead in the water.

  June 24, 2003, Camp David (U.S. Presidential Retreat), Maryland

  Iran had been rebuffed, but Pakistan was still being promiscuously wooed. President Bush welcomed General Pervez Musharraf to Camp David for a summit at which he credited Pakistan with having apprehended more than five hundred members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, including Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, and Khalid’s nephew Ammar al-Balochi and his Yemeni thug Silver, who had also been run to ground in Karachi.

  “Thanks to President Musharraf’s leadership, on the al-Qaeda front we’ve dismantled the chief operators,” Bush said.123 Although Osama bin Laden was still at large, his lieutenants were “no longer a threat.”

  For Musharraf, who had left India as a four-year-old Muslim migrant in 1947 and spent his early years in Karachi sharing two barrack rooms with eighteen relatives, this was his proudest moment; and he milked it shamelessly: “Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I am extremely grateful to President Bush for his gracious invitation to me to visit the United States. I am particularly honored and touched by his special gesture in arranging our meeting in Camp David.”

  Over whiskey and before an open fire, he pledged Pakistan’s ongoing support.124 The two countries enjoyed a “very close and, indeed, special relationship,” he said, departing with a new $3 billion aid package, half of it designated for the military.

  “Pure gold,” Musharraf said to an aide on the flight back to Islamabad. “And there’s more to come.”125

  Summer 2003, Peshawar, Pakistan

  Brigadier Asad Munir could not get Osama’s letter to his son Hamzah out of his head. He was sure that it proved the Al Qaeda leader was alive somewhere in Pakistan—writing and directing the terror.

  Circumstantial evidence pointed toward the Tribal Areas. And as Peshawar station chief, this was close to his fiefdom, a place he nowadays ran in tandem with the CIA. Every day, Munir met agents Julie and Keith, who stayed in suites at the Pearl Continental Hotel, the last vestige of luxury in a shuttered city plagued by bomb threats and kidnappings—the last place one could get a steak and a cold beer.

  Together they were compiling a new Al Qaeda almanac that went well beyond the FBI’s original 9/11 table of twenty-two names: dozens of pages of couriers, facilitators, and guesthouse managers; foot soldiers, drivers, lookouts; cleaners and cooks.

  Each morning Munir and his counterparts would pore over a thick stack of transcripts from conversations intercepted overnight. Hundreds of phones were now being monitored and e-mail accounts sieved. “We’d compare and we would sift,” he reflected.126 Most of these names came from the ISI, which had the better humint (human intelligence derived from interpersonal sources). “Unlike the U.S., we understood how tribal society worked.”

  Spread across Pakistan, Al Qaeda sometimes had no choice but to resort to cell phones or to Public Call Offices (PCOs), which were located in every village and town. Given the arrest of several important couriers, the outfit’s increasing reliance on open channels enabled the CIA to extract a web of interconnected phone numbers and suspect addresses, just as Deuce Martinez had done when he went after Abu Zubaydah. A similar schematic now adorned the wall of Munir’s office, beside a detailed map of the North-West Frontier Province—another gift from the United States.

  Munir and his American counterparts studied it, measuring journey times between locations, overlaying courier routes, identifying compounds. “Who’s new at this guesthouse? Who’s staying in that private home? It was my job to know everyone checking in and out within a one-kilometer radius of any given point,” he recalled.

  Munir and his CIA partners believed Osama was in semipermanent transit.127 They tried to focus their energies on the Tribal Areas but, administratively independent, the areas were physically off-limits even to the ISI. National laws applied only to highways, government buildings, and installations. One foot either side of the roads was no-man’s-land. “We didn’t have access. We barely had a presence. If we did a raid, we’d have to mobilize an entire army. We’d have to fight our way in. And out.”

  Nothing could be done quickly or quietly.128

  As “close-in” surveillance was impossible, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) offered remote solutions. General Michael Hayden, the NSA’s director since 1999, was keen to put the agency’s 9/11 intelligence failures behind him and had already overseen a total overhaul of the NSA’s surveillance operations, farming much of the new work out to private contractors. Now, with the help of the British Government Communications Headquarters and Western intelligence agencies, the NSA draped an electronic blanket over Pakistan’s Tribal Areas. “If you wanted huge coverage of the FATA [the Federally Administered Tribal Areas], NSA had ten times the manpower and twenty times the budget,” said Munir.

 
A “listening trawl” saw them scoop up information from satellites and data from cell phone towers and Internet portals. Controversially, the NSA also began tapping communications between suspected terrorists in Pakistan and people in the United States—without obtaining any search warrants—an initiative referred to by the Bush administration as the “terrorist surveillance program” and that would later face legal challenges.

  A companion operation on the ground, a “cyber espionage trawl,” saw CIA assets seed doctored phones and computers (whole and in parts) into markets across the region. The hope was that one of these tampered-with devices might be purchased and co-opted into the low-budget DIY network run by Al Qaeda. It was a long shot, but it might enable the U.S. intelligence community to enslave a user’s computer or phone, even a local village PCO and fax machine. Under the watchful eye of Brigadier Munir, cheap-deal Nokia handsets, refurbished hard drives, motherboards, processors and screens, cable modems, and cut-price USB drives were shipped out to tempt unsuspecting shoppers in Mir Ali, Miram Shah, and other far-flung locations where Al Qaeda supporters were suspected to be hiding out, such as Bara, Bannu, Hangu, and Kohat.

  August 7, 2003, Baghdad, Iraq

  Backed by Iranian supply lines and Al Qaeda cash and guided by Saif al-Adel, who was still officially in Iranian detention but had been allowed some freedom to continue with his activities, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi started his offensive in Iraq in bloodthirsty style by attacking his own countrymen. A huge car bomb destroyed much of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad on August 7, leaving behind scenes of horrific carnage with injured survivors crawling between blackened bodies.129