Nine Lives: My time as the West's top spy inside al-Qaeda

by Aimen Dean

  26. George Tenet later discussed in his memoir the CIA’s attempts after 9/11 to learn more about any nuclear threat al-Qaeda posed. He wrote: ‘One senior al-Qa’ida operative told us that Mohammed Abdel-al-Aziz al-Masri, who had been detained in Iran, managed al-Qa’ida’s nuclear program and had conducted experiments with explosives to test the effects of producing a nuclear yield.’ Based on what Abu Khabab and al-Ghamdi told about al-Qaeda’s plan to spread disinformation, I do not believe these experiments were of any consequence. Just weeks before 9/11, Osama bin Laden met at least one retired Pakistani nuclear scientist and discussed the idea of developing a nuclear device. The group had made a failed attempt in the early 1990s to purchase uranium. But the US government in 2002 judged there was ‘no credible information that al-Qa’ida had obtained fissile

  material or acquired a nuclear weapon’. See Tenet (2007), op. cit., pp. 261–8, 275; ‘The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction’, Report to the President of the United States, 31 March 2005, p. 272; Peter Bergen, ‘Reevaluating Al-Qa’ida’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities’, CTC Sentinel 3:9 (2010).

  27. We discussed sarin gas. Aum Shinrikyo had used it in March 1995 in an attack on the Tokyo subway which killed twelve, but Abu Khabab thought producing the gas was well beyond the capabilities of our facility. The Japanese death cult also launched several failed attempts in the spring and summer of 1995 to kill Tokyo subway commuters with hydrogen cyanide gas, but I only became aware of these attempts years later. See also ‘Chronology of Aum Shinrikyo’s CBW Activities’, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 2001.

  28. See Markus Binder and Michael Moodie, ‘Jihadists and Chemical Weapons’, in Gary Ackerman and Jeremy Tamsett (eds), Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction (CRC Press, 2009), p. 133.

  29. Text of the ‘World Islamic Front’s Statement Urging Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders’, Al-Quds al-Arabi, 23 February 1998.

  30. https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm.

  31. In May 1998 bin Laden and al-Zawahiri held a press conference for a select group of Pakistani journalists at the al-Faruq camp south of Khost to talk up their ‘Worldwide Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders’. Abu Hafs al-Masri and Abu Hamza al-Ghamdi were also in attendance. I was at the camp at the time but was told to stay away from the journalists. For more on the press conference see Bergen (2006), op. cit., pp. 202–4.

  32. Ahmed: 3079.

  33. Bergen and Cruickshank, op. cit.; Bergen (2006), op. cit., pp. 108–9.

  34. For more on al-Ayeri, see Hegghammer (2010), pp. 118–29, and Hegghammer, ‘Islamist violence and regime stability in Saudi Arabia’, International Affairs 84:4 (2008), pp. 701–15; Jarrett M. Brachman, Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2009), pp. 79–81, 143; Roel Meijer, ‘Yusuf al-Uyayri and the making of a revolutionary Salafi praxis’, Die Welt des Islams 47:3–4 (2007), pp. 422–59.

  35. There are several verses in the Koran which explicitly forbid suicide. For example: ‘And do not kill yourselves. Surely, Allah is Most Merciful to you’ (Koran: 4:29); ‘Do not kill yourselves with your own hands, but do good, for God loves those who do good’ (Koran: 2:195). The Prophet also said: ‘Whoever kills himself on purpose . ?. ?. will be in the Fire’ (Bukhari: 5778).

  My Fourth Life: Escape from al-Qaeda

  1. Anne Stenersen, Al Qaida in Afghanistan (Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 149–54. Ali Soufan, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda (W. W. Norton, 2011), pp. 78–80 and 93–4. See also the November 1998 conclusions by the FBI: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/bombings/summary.html; 9/11 Commission Report, p. 155. For an account of the Africa Embassy bombings see Tod Hoffman, Al Qaeda Declares War, The African Embassy Bombings and America's Search for Justice (ForeEdge, 2014), pp. 10–16.

  2. See Zubair Qamar, ‘Al-Tatarrus; Al-Qaeda’s Manipulation of the “Law on Using Human Shields”’, zubairqamar.com, 14 November 2013; ‘Ali Gomaa defends Ibn Taymmiyah’, Almesryoon, 1 March 2015. As reported by the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Ibn Taymiyyah’s al-Tatarrus fatwa can be found in ‘Comprehensive Essays and Fatwas of Ibn Taymiyyah’, Vol. 28, pp. 537–546. Mishari al-Zaidi, ‘The Concept of al-Tatarrus from Ibn Taymiyyah and the Mongols to Casablanca and Riyadh’, 8 August 2003.

  3. Abu Musab al-Suri’s real name is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar. For more on his life and impact, see Brynjar Lia, Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaeda Strategist Abu Mus’ab Al-Suri (Oxford University Press, 2009); Paul Cruickshank and Mohanad Hage Ali, ‘Abu Musab Al Suri: Architect of the New Al-Qaeda’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30:1 (2007), pp. 1–14.

  4. Bergen (2006), op. cit., p. 184.

  5. In response al-Suri wrote to al-Qaeda’s high command on 19 July 1998: ‘[Bin Laden’s] latest troublemaking with the Taliban and the Leader of the Faithful [Mullah Omar] jeopardises the Arabs, and the Arab presence today in all of Afghanistan, for no good reason. It provides a ripe opportunity for all adversaries, including America [. . .] to serve the Arabs a blow that could end up causing their most faithful allies to kick them out . . . I think our brother [bin Laden] has caught the disease of screens, flashes, fans, and applause.’ When some in the Taliban were angered by al-Qaeda’s East Africa bombings the following month, bin Laden responded by pledging allegiance to Mullah Omar. See Lia, op. cit., pp. 284–5; Alan Cullison, ‘Inside Al-Qaeda’s Hard Drive’, The Atlantic, September 2004; and Vahid Brown, ‘The Façade of Allegiance: Bin Ladin’s Dubious Pledge to Mullah Omar’, CTC Sentinel 3:1 (2010).

  6. See Stenersen (2017), op. cit., p. 78.

  7. ‘United States and Saudi Arabia Designate Terrorist Fundraising and Support Networks’, United States Treasury Department Press Release, March 31, 2016.

  8. Bergen (2006), op. cit., p. 143; Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank, ‘Jihadist Death Threatened Libya Peace Deal’, CNN, 28 November 2009; Profile of Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, The Rendition Project.

  9. For more on al-Banshiri, see his profile by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

  10. Raffi Khatchadourian, ‘Azzam the American: The making of an Al Qaeda homegrown’, New Yorker, 22 January 2007.

  11. Coalition intelligence sources who examined the footage believed it might have been filmed at Darunta. But having reviewed the footage, I believe it was very likely filmed at al-Qaeda’s headquarters at Tarnak Farms near Kandahar. Although the audio quality is poor a voice which I’m fairly sure belongs to al-Qaeda bombmaker Abd al-Aziz al-Masri can be heard on the recording. These experiments were likely based on the research being done in Darunta. Abu Khabab told me that Abd al-Aziz sent at least two trainees to Abu Khabab’s lab in Darunta around early 1999 to learn how to make poison gas and other chemicals. See ‘Disturbing scenes of death show capability with chemical gas’, CNN, 19 August 2002.

  12. ‘Here Are The Four Main Poison Gases Used In World War I’, Business Insider, 21 May 2014.

  13. ‘The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction’, Report to the President of the United States, 31 March 2005, p. 270. For more on phosgene, see https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/phosgene/basics/facts.asp.

  14. Much later I learned the French logged the call I had made from Abu Zubaydah’s phone.

  15. In October 1998 Abu Hamza, the firebrand preacher at Finsbury Park mosque, had released a public statement warning Westerners to ‘stay out of Yemen’. Transcript of 17 April 2014 trial proceedings USA vs Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, US District Court, Southern District of New York, p. 26.

  My Fifth Life: Undercover

  1. ‘Britons Convicted of Yemen Bomb Plot’, BBC News, 9 August 1999; ‘Abu Hamza’s Car Scam Sons Jailed’, BBC News, 28 May 2009; James Gillespie and Richard Kerbaj, ‘Abu Hamza fathers criminal brood’, Sunday Times, 30 September 2012.

  2. Rory Caroll, ‘Yemen Trial to Start this
Week’, Guardian, 24 January 1999.

  3. ‘Yemen Executes Islamic Kidnapper’, BBC, 17 October 1999.

  4. The indictment: USA vs Mustafa Kemel Mustafa, US District Court, Southern District of New York, 6 February 2006; Transcript of 17 April 2014 trial proceedings USA vs Mustafa Kemel Mustafa, US District Court, Southern District of New York; ‘Radical Cleric Jailed for Life by US Court’, BBC News, 9 January 2015; David Barrett, ‘Abu Hamza trial: The terrifying Yemen hostage-taking behind conviction of London preacher’, Daily Telegraph, 19 May 2014; ‘Abu Hamza was “mouthpiece” for 1998 Yemen kidnappings group’, BBC News, 13 May 2014; Document 103, USA vs Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Docket No. 15–211, 11 January 2018, pp. 7–11; Jonathan Schanzer, ‘Yemen’s War on Terror’, Orbis, Volume 48, Issue 3, Summer 2004, pp. 517–531.

  5. Philip Johnston, ‘Phone Tap Prevented Abu Hamza Trial in Britain’, Daily Telegraph, 29 May 2004.

  6. For more, see Robert Verkaik, ‘The trials of Babar Ahmad: from jihad in Bosnia to a US prison via Met brutality’, Observer, 19 March 2016.

  7. ‘Conversation with Terror’, Time, 11 January 1999.

  8. In the December 1998 Time magazine interview with journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden added. ‘And if I seek to acquire these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims.’

  9. For more, see Thomas Joscelyn, ‘Another al-Qaeda veteran reportedly killed while leading Jund al-Aqsa in Syria’, Long War Journal, 27 May 2015.

  10. See Peter Nesser, ‘Abu Qatada and Palestine’, Welt des Islams 53 (2013).

  11. Duncan Gardham, ‘Nightclub Bouncer who became cleric of hate’, Daily Telegraph, 8 February 2006; Ben Farmer, ‘The Finsbury Park Mosque: radical hotbed transformed to model of community relations’, Daily Telegraph, 19 June 2017.

  12. ‘Abu Hamza Profile’, BBC News, 9 January 2015. For more on Abu Hamza al-Masri’s journey to jihad, see Duncan Gardham, ‘Nightclub bouncer who became the cleric of hate’, Daily Telegraph, 8 February 2006.

  13. Philip Johnston, ‘Phone Tap Prevented Abu Hamza Trial in Britain’, Daily Telegraph, 29 May 2004; ‘Abu Hamza arrested’, BBC News, 15 March 1999.

  14. Philip Sherwell, ‘Abu Hamza “secretly worked for MI5” to “keep streets of London safe”’, Daily Telegraph, 7 May 2014; United States vs Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Document 95-2, 12 December 2017, pp. 7, 97–8.

  15. ‘Don’t Mess with Mary Quin’, CBS 60 Minutes, 2 October 2016.

  16. Paul Cruickshank and Nic Robertson, ‘London ringleader Khuram Butt was intensely investigated’, CNN, 6 June 2017; Dominic Kennedy, ‘Radical al-Muhajiroun group is behind most UK terror plots’, The Times, 21 March 2015.

  17. Ben Quinn and Matthew Weaver, ‘After Guantánamo: what became of the Britons freed from the US camp?’, Guardian, 22 February 2017.

  18. For more on al-Hayali’s arrest, see Andrew Buncombe, ‘Terror suspect

  in Morocco holds key to al-Qa’ida’, Independent, 19 June 2002, and

  for the reaction to his return home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-XPP0Kpo20.

  19. Dominic Casciani, ‘Babar Ahmad: The godfather of Internet jihad?’, BBC News, 17 July 2014.

  20. Verkaik, op. cit.

  21. Qutb (1964), op. cit., p. 75.

  22. See Kevin Jackson, ‘Al-Qaeda’s Top Scholar’, Jihadica, 25 September 2014.

  23. See Judith Miller and Jeff Gerth, ‘Al-Qaeda; Honey Trade Said to Provide Funds and Cover to bin Laden’, New York Times, 11 October 2001.

  24. Paul Cruickshank, ‘Transatlantic Shoebomber knew Bin Laden’, CNN, 20 April 2012; ‘Operative details al-Qaeda plans to hit planes in wake of 9/11’, CNN, 25 April 2012; Badat deposition in the trial of Adis Medunjanin, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 29 March 2012; Mark Honigsbaum and Vikram Dodd, ‘From Gloucester to Afghanistan: the making of a shoe bomber’, Guardian, 5 March 2005.

  25. The three precursor chemicals of TATP are public knowledge. See ‘Marketing and Use of Explosive Precursors’, European Commission Press Release, 20 September 2010.

  26. For more on terrorists being trained to make TATP, see Paul Cruickshank, ‘Learning Terror: The Evolving Threat of Overseas Training to the West’, in Magnus Ranstorp and Magnus Normark (eds), Understanding Terrorism Innovation and Learning (Routledge, 2015), ch. 7.

  27. ‘Israeli-Palestinian Fatalities Since 2000 – Key Trends, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’, August 2007.

  28. Philippe Naughton, ‘TATP is suicide bombers’ weapon of choice, The Times (London), 15 July 2005; Ben Doherty, ‘Manchester bomb used same explosive as Paris and Brussels attacks, says US lawmaker’, Guardian, 25 May 2017.

  29. For more on al-Qaeda’s front-line fighting in Afghanistan, see Stenersen (2017), op. cit., ch. 7.

  30. See Mitchell D. Silber, The Al-Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West (Pennsylvania University Press, 2012), pp. 95–106, 289; ‘US Holds Senior al-Qaeda Figure’, BBC News, 27 April 2007; Carol Rosenberg, ‘Alleged al-Qaida commander reveals new name in Guantánamo court’, Miami Herald, 17 May 2016. Also, see ‘Office of the US Military Commissions Charging Sheet for Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi’, 10 February 2014.

  My Sixth Life: Jihad for a New Millennium

  1. For an exhaustive and well-researched account of the attacks, see: John B. Dunlop, The Moscow Bombings of September 1999: Examinations of Russian Terrorist Attacks at the Onset of Vladimir Putin’s Rule (Ibidem, 2012).

  2. Michael Wines, ‘2d Deadly Apartment Blast Hits Moscow’, New York Times, 13 September 1999; ‘Who is behind the bombing?’ BBC News, 16 September 1999.

  3. ‘Russia “reclaims” Dagestan villages’, BBC News, 26 August 1999; Steve Harrigan, ‘Rebels say they’re out of Dagestan; Russia says war continues’, CNN, 23 August 1999; Helen Womack, ‘Rebels stage new invasion of Dagestan’, Independent, 5 September 1999. For a profile of Basayev, see Liz Fuller, ‘Chechnya: Shamil Basayev’s Life of War and Terror’, Radio Free Europe, 10 July 2006.

  4. ‘Russia’s bombs: Who is to blame?’, BBC News, 30 September 1999.

  5. Amy Knight, ‘Finally, We Know About the Moscow Bombings’, New York Review of Books, 12 November 2012; Maura Reynolds, ‘Fears of Bombing Turn to Doubts for Some in Russia’, LA Times, 15 January 2000; David Holley, ‘Russians wonder: Bomb plot or drill?’ LA Times, 4 March 2007; Dunlop, op. cit., p. 182; David Satter, Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Criminal Russian State, (Yale University Press, 2004), p. 28.

  6. Gregory Feifer, ‘Russia: Three Years Later, Moscow Apartment Bombings Remain Unsolved’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 6 September 2002; ‘Russia Bombs Airport in Grozny,’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 23 September 1999; Satter, op. cit., p. 28.

  7. For an excellent account of the situation in Russia at that time, see

  Sergei Kovalev, ‘Putin’s War’, New York Review of Books, 10 February 2000.

  8. John Sweeney, ‘The Fifth Bomb: Did Putin’s Secret Police Bomb Moscow in a Deadly Black Operation’, Cryptome, 24 November 2000; Kovalev, op. cit; Neil MacFarquhar, ‘Vladimir Putin’s Quotes: A Collection for the Discerning Russian Official’, New York Times, 29 December 2015.

  9. ‘Russian Sends Ground Troops Into Chechnya, Raising Fears’, Associated Press, 1 October 1999.

  10. See Michael Specter, ‘Russians’ Killing of 100 Civilians In a Chechen Town Stirs Outrage’, New York Times, 8 May 1995; and ‘Case Study: Russian Federation, Chechnya, Operation Samashki’, International Committee of the Red Cross; ‘The situation of human rights in the Republic of Chechnya of the Russian Federation Report of the Secretary-General’, United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 26 March 1996.

  11. For a few of the murky details, see Sweeney, op. cit.

  12. Kovalev, op. cit.

 
13. http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-russian-president-vladimir-putin-left-and-tony-blair-right-in-the-22905095.html.

  14. ‘Scars remain amid Chechen revival’, BBC News, 3 March 2007.

  15. Nick Paton Walsh, ‘Moscow flat bombers get life for killing 246’, Guardian, 13 January 2004; David Satter, ‘The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power’, National Review, 17 August 2016. For an excellent review of the events leading up to the bombings, see Richard Sakwa (ed.), Chechnya: From Past to Future (Anthem Press, 2005).

  16. See Stenersen (2017), op. cit., p. 96, 101.

  17. See Mary Anne Weaver, ‘The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’, The Atlantic, July/August 2006.

  18. Joby Warrick, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS (Doubleday, 2015), pp. 50–1.

  19. Weaver, op. cit.; Ali Soufan, Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State (W.W. Norton, 2017), p. 117.

  20. Warrick, op. cit., pp. 54–6; Weaver, op. cit.

  21. Warrick, op. cit., pp. 47, 60–61, 65.

  22. Ahmed: 19156.

  23. ‘HUJI chief still at large’, The News (Pakistan), 23 September 2008.

  24. Warrick, op. cit., pp. 64–5.

  25. Tenet, op. cit., p. 125.

  26. Warrick, op. cit., pp. 63–4; Soufan (2011), op. cit., pp. 132–141.

  27. ‘Khalil al-Deek: al-Qaeda’s Digital Pioneer’, SITE Intelligence Group, February 2009; Judith Miller, ‘Dissecting a Terror Plot From Boston to Amman’, New York Times, 15 January 2001; 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 174–8; Ali Soufan, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda (W.W. Norton, 2011), pp. 132–6, 140–5.

  28. There are conflicting accounts on whether al-Zarqawi was granted an audience with bin Laden. For more, see Brian Fishman, ‘Revising the History of Al-Qai’da’s Original Meeting with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’, Combating Terrorism Center, 25 October 2016; Warrick, op. cit., p. 66; Saif al-Adel, ‘Jihadist Biography of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’ (first circulated in 2005 and reposted on a jihadi forum in 2009); Fuad Husayn, Al-Zarqawi: The Second Generation of al-Qaeda, serialized in al-Quds al-Arabi in 2005.