by Adrian Levy
3. Abu Uthman.
4. Osama to Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, December 17, 2007, recovered from Abbottabad, declassified and released by the ODNI in May 2015.
5. His confidant was Mahfouz Ibn El Waleed, who related this story to the authors. Abu Ghaith also spoke of it in his FBI interrogation, author copy of the report.
6. Author interviews with Abu Ghaith’s lawyer Stanley Cohen, New York, October 2014, and with Mahfouz, 2014 and 2015.
7. From Abu Ghaith’s book, Twenty Guidelines on the Path to Jihad, which in December 2010 would be published on a website run by Abu Walid al-Masri (Mustafa Hamid), the former Al Jazeera reporter who was also held in Iran. In contrast, the FBI described Abu Ghaith’s role in Al Qaeda as “comparable to the consigliere in a mob family or propaganda minister in a totalitarian regime.”
8. In his FBI interrogation he says both Saif al-Adel and Abu Mohammed al-Masri readily confirmed their roles; author copy of transcript.
9. He took his feelings out on his new wife, an Egyptian girl named Amal, who was the daughter of an imprisoned brother from Islamic Jihad.
10. Bin Laden’s proscription regarding the rights of a widowed woman can be found in a letter recovered from Abbottabad. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
11. Author interviews with Mahfouz.
12. Author interviews with Shams ul-Hassan Faruqi, Islamabad, February 2015.
13. Faruqi speculated to the authors that she wanted him to use his connections in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) to get her to Afghanistan, saying she believed only the Taliban could help her. The PAEC had close links to the Afghan scientific community and could travel there easily. At the time, he said, he was taken aback. “The last time I was there was 1999; it will take time,” he said.
14. Aafia’s children were Ahmed (eleven), Maryam (nine), and Suleiman (five). Ages correct as of 2008.
15. Faruqi told the authors he felt he was being lured into a trap. “I think certain people wanted to test me, as in certain circles it had been mistakenly claimed that I also had links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”
16. Aafia’s mother is Ismat Siddiqui.
17. While they waited for Ismat to arrive, Faruqi persuaded his visitor to lift her veil, and what he saw shocked him. “It was Aafia, I am one hundred percent sure, but she had had plastic surgery.” He asked her: “Who did that to your face?” She said: “Nobody.” Author interviews with Faruqi.
18. Hallabi (Daood) to “My beloved Shaykh,” undated. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
19. Youngest wife Amal introduced her solemn children to the new arrivals. “These are your brothers and sisters,” she told Safiyah, Aasia, Ibrahim, and Zainab, who were approximately the same ages as Khadija’s children.
20. Letter from Seham to Hallabi (Daood), December 16, 2007. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
21. Author interviews with bin Laden family members and relatives of Maryam.
22. Letter from Seham to Hallabi (Daood), December 16, 2007. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
23. Letter from Hallabi to Seham, January 2008. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
24. Multiple author interviews with Benazir Bhutto (2005–2007), Wajid Shamsul Hasan (2005–present), Peter Galbraith (2005–2006), and Mark Siegel (2005–2007).
25. She wrote a letter naming Musharraf, Hamid Gul, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, and Ijaz Shah, the former head of Intelligence Branch (IB), as planning to assassinate her. Author interview with Benazir Bhutto, Dubai, 2007. Authors also sought an interview with Shah on this and other subjects, but he refused.
26. Seeing Bhutto entering the election race, the toppled prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who had been exiled to Saudi Arabia after the coup of 1999, decided to do the same. He flew into Pakistan, warning Musharraf that hundreds of thousands of his supporters would greet him; only a few hundred turned up. Sharif was arrested and flew back to Saudi Arabia soon after.
27. Author interview with Benazir Bhutto.
28. Author interview with General Pervez Musharraf, Karachi, February 2015.
29. Osama letter to Ibrahim (Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti) dated January 20, 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016. See also Bill Roggio, “Osama Bin Laden’s Files: Al Qaeda Provided Feedback on Pakistani Taliban’s Charter,” Long War Journal, March 11, 2016.
30. The two Al Qaeda leaders were concerned about the lack of clarity in the TTP’s suggested methods of appointing its emir, his deputy, shura council members, and the leaders of the local TTP branches, as well as how disputes would be resolved. “We should [also] cover the Shura Council, their membership count, the attributes of their members, the duties of the Shura Council, how they reach crucial decisions to include their meetings timetable, and whether it should be on a monthly, bimonthly, or a six-month basis,” they wrote.
31. She was taken to Rawalpindi General Hospital.
32. Musharraf has never stood trial for the charges that are still registered against him to this day and include impeachment, murder, and treason. In interviews he has denied all of them.
33. Author interviews with Mahfouz, who witnessed these scenes. Also corroborated by bin Laden family members.
34. As witnessed by Mahfouz.
35. This episode and a summary of everything that happened in Iran and who was held where can be found in a report written by Abu Abd al-Rahman Anas al-Subayi (Abu Anas al-Libi) to “the Shaykh,” October 13, 2010. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
36. When General Qassem Suleimani sent a senior Iranian diplomat who had previously negotiated with Sunni Islamist groups in Yemen to remonstrate with the Al Qaeda prisoners, Mahfouz was still furious. “My brothers warned me back in 2001 of your treachery, that I should never make a deal with Iranians and expect them to keep it,” he complained. “Today, I have discovered the bitter truth.” Author interviews with Mahfouz.
37. “Khalid Shaikh Mohammad: Make Me a Martyr for 9/11,” Scotsman, June 5, 2008.
38. Saad was the only member of the family to have any experience of traveling freely, as in 1998 he went to Sudan to find a wife.
39. “Treasury Designates Senior Al-Qa’ida Official and Terrorist Training Center Supporting Lashkar-E Tayyiba and the Taliban,” U.S. Department of the Treasury Press Center, August 20, 2013.
40. Author interviews with Mahfouz and bin Laden family members.
41. This account of Saad’s escape is based on author interviews with Mahfouz, who was reunited with the bin Laden family soon after, and author interviews with bin Laden family members, who pieced it together after they were freed themselves. Several letters from Osama also refer to Saad’s escape and subsequent death. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015 and March 2016.
42. Letter from Abu Uthman to “the honorable brothers and the uncle [Osama],” early April 2009. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
43. Ibid.
44. His name was Sheikh ul-Islam.
45. This letter, dated August 15, 2008, was videoed in a clip that was subsequently recovered from Abbottabad. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015. Family members told the authors that the handwriting and language were not Saad’s and that his habit was to ask someone else to compose letters for him. The story of the Pashtun family who took him in and the schoolboy who wrote the letter comes from two tribal journalists, interviewed in Islamabad and Peshawar, who wish to remain anonymous for their security. Also input from the family
of Maryam, who overheard some of the discussions on the topic of Saad.
46. Abu Burhan was Saad’s friend in Sudan who lent money for his wedding.
47. A clip of her questioning can be viewed here: www.dailymotion.com/video/xx5ouy_initial-questioning-of-aafia-siddiqui-in-afghani_news.
48. She was named by police as “Saliha” and described as being twenty-five years old, educated to the eleventh grade and coming originally from Pakistan’s Sindh Province. This description is taken from the video of the police station press conference, with audio and subtitles. It was later uploaded by CAGE, a London-based detainees’ rights advocacy group, and can also be seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zec9MRxIsbY.
49. This account is taken from various court documents in the U.S. trial of Aafia Siddiqui, which began in February 2010.
50. Author interviews with Shams ul-Hassan Faruqi, Islamabad, February 2015.
51. Aafia’s sister is Dr. Fowsia Siddiqui. She made these comments to Declan Walsh when he was New York Times Pakistan correspondent. Authors attempted to speak to Fowsia directly, but she was unwilling to discuss the case.
52. Author interview with Asim Qureshi, CAGE, London, May 2014.
53. The election was in September and Musharraf left Pakistan on November 23.
54. The first strike under the new rules had come in January 2008, targeting Khushali, a village near Mir Ali and close to where Khadija bin Laden had died giving birth. Based on intelligence that an “Al Qaeda summit” was unfolding, the missiles destroyed a cluster of houses, killing two of the most senior Al Qaeda figures in more than a year: Abu Laith al-Libi and Abu Obeida, who was Al Qaeda’s Pakistan operations chief. Before Al Qaeda could ratify any new appointments, missiles fired by a second U.S. drone demolished a house in Zeralita, a village in Azam Warzak district, twelve miles west of Wana, on July 28. Inside was Abu Khabab al-Masri, the chief of Al Qaeda’s “curdled milk,” or WMD, program, a legendary Al Qaeda figure who the United States claimed to have killed once already. The famous bomb maker, who had once seized the bin Laden boys’ pet puppies for chemical experimentation, had trained shoe-bomber Richard Reid and had a $5 million bounty on his head. On October 16, Khalid Habib, an Egyptian close to the Mauritanian, and the Al Qaeda chief of the Tribal Areas, was also killed in his vehicle at Tarparghai, in South Waziristan. He had recently written to Sheikh Osama to apologize for being unable to fight due to having suffered wounds in an earlier drone strike. “Oh my, my health has declined quite a bit due to the successive wounds, the most recent six months ago. Praise God, God will grant me this as a badge on the Day of Resurrection. I pray for us and you to be kept from Satan and man and the demons. May he protect you and the doctor with his safekeeping … Your poor younger brother, at the mercy of his Lord.” ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
55. Civilian casualties totaled 848 killed or wounded, plus four hundred thousand refugees. David Ignatius, “A Quiet Deal with Pakistan,” Washington Post, November 4, 2008.
56. Al Qaeda had already gained the release of a number of high-level prisoners in exchange for the Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan just months earlier. It was a new tactic and it was working.
57. Jane Perlez, “U.S. Aid Worker Slain in Pakistan,” New York Times, November 12, 2008.
58. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was the coming together of eight or more groups, following the raid on the Red Mosque.
59. Attarzadeh’s prolonged captivity caused diplomatic ructions, with Iran’s foreign ministry describing it “an act of terrorism.”
60. Author meeting with General Pasha, Islamabad 2015, and multiple meetings with his aide Brigadier Syed Amjad Shabbir.
61. Steve Coll, “Pakistan’s New Spy Chief,” New Yorker, September 30, 2008.
62. Press Trust of India, “Shuja Pasha Admitted ISI’s Role in 26/11 Mumbai Attacks, Says Ex-CIA Chief,” NDTV, February 23, 2016.
63. Shuja Nawaz, “Focusing the Spyglass on Pakistan’s ISI,” shujanawaz.com (blog), October 3, 2008.
64. Description from Kamran Bokhari e-mail at Stratfor, a Texas-based company that provides intelligence services to several U.S. government agencies. Bokhari was reporting back to Stratfor on a visit to see Pasha there in 2010. “The Global Intelligence Files,” Wikileaks, wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/16/1664671_re-alpha-insight-afghanistan-pakistan-isi-chief-not-for.html.
65. One case of Pakistan’s spies benefiting financially from such bounties was the $5 million head money allegedly paid to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in July 2004 by the U.S. government for assistance in the arrest of Noor Uthman Muhammed near Lahore airport. Muhammed then tipped them off about Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a key Al Qaeda leader connect to the U.S. embassy attacks of 1998. Ghailani was arrested after a firefight in Gujrat, led by the IB.
66. Author interviews with colleagues of General Pasha who have requested anonymity.
67. The ISI rapidly briefed that the attack was linked to Baitullah Mehsud in Waziristan, providing fragments of an intercept that purportedly caught the TTP chief asking for updates. An internal report that showed the truck’s movements had been flagged up three days before the blast, and so had the procuring of the explosives, in a surveillance operation that went back three weeks. Later it emerged that a dossier of early warnings had not been acted upon.
68. Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Siege (London: Penguin Books, November 2013).
69. Author discussion with General Pasha, Islamabad, February 2015.
70. George Packer, “Can You Keep a Secret?” New Yorker, March 7, 2016.
71. Press Trust of India, “Ahmed Shuja Pasha Admitted ISI’s Role in 26/11 Mumbai Attacks”; Michael Hayden, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (New York: Penguin, 2016).
72. Author interviews with Husain Haqqani, Washington, D.C., 2014–2016. Also see Suhasini Haider, “Our People Planned 26/11: Ex-chief of ISI,” Hindu, May 10, 2016.
73. Author interview with ISI official, who requested anonymity, Islamabad.
74. The three-day Mumbai operation had been coordinated from Karachi, with the masterminds talking the gunmen through their paces from a control room kitted out with television screens, computers, and satellite technology. Daood Gilani, a Pakistani-American who had changed his name to David Headley in order to carry out surveillance on several targets, was unmasked as the brother of an official in the Pakistani prime minister’s office. Later arrested and extradited to the United States, Headley named three serving ISI officers, who had paid for his trips to Mumbai and received his material upon his return. When journalists tried to interview relatives of the gunmen, nine of whom were killed during the operation, ISI agents threatened them. The mother of the lone survivor, Ajmal Kasab, was told to say that her son had been martyred fighting the Indian Army in Kashmir.
75. This ultimatum was referred to by Osama in several letters recovered from Abbottabad. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015 and March 2016.
76. Osama letter to Ibrahim dated January 20, 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
77. His brother-in-law was Yasin Afridi and the teenage nephews were Mohammed and Abdul Hamid.
78. Khalid bin Laden to Abd-al-Latif (Daood), December 29, 2009. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
79. Seham to Abu Abdallah (Daood), undated. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
80. Khalid bin Laden to Abd-al-Latif (Daood), January 7, 2008. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
81. Abd-al-Latif (Daood) to Khalid, undated. ODNI documents, Abbottabad.
82. Peter Bergen,
Manhunt (London: Bodley Head, 2012); and Mark Bowden, The Finish (New York: Grove Press, 2012).
83. Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc, 2004).
84. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon was also present. Bergen, Manhunt.
85. Bergen, Manhunt.
86. In the beginning they got his name mixed up with that of his older brother Habib Ahmad Saeed, who had been killed at Tora Bora 2001.
87. A review of 2002 debriefings by a foreign government of a detainee who claimed to have traveled in 2000 from Kuwait to Afghanistan with an “Ahmad al-Kuwaiti” provided the breakthrough leading to the likely identification of Abu Ahmad as a Kuwait national. For a full analysis of how the building evidence really led the CIA to Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, see Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), The Official Senate Report on CIA Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2015), 25 [hereafter Senate Torture Report].
88. A summary of al-Qahtani’s interrogation file can be read at “Gitmo Files,” Wikileaks, wikileaks.org/gitmo/prisoner/63.html.
89. In August 2001, al-Qahtani had tried to enter the United States with the intention of becoming the twentieth hijacker, replacing Ramzi bin al-Shibh. But because he had only bought a one-way ticket, he was refused entry.
90. A summary of Slahi’s interrogation file can be read at “Gitmo Files,” Wikileaks, wikileaks.org/gitmo/prisoner/760.html.
91. Senate Torture Report.
92. A cable from CIA headquarters dated May 1, 2008, entitled “Targeting Efforts against Suspected UBL Facilitator Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti,” recorded how the CIA created a number of collection platforms to find Abu Ahmad and Osama. “Although we want to refrain from addressing endgame strategies, HQ Station judges that detaining Habib should be a last resort, since we have had no success in eliciting actionable intelligence on bin Laden’s location from any detainees.” Senate Torture Report.