by Aimen Dean
29. Abu Qatada also became a source of support for Zarqawi’s fledgling group. See testimony of Shadi Abdalla in Bergen (2006), op. cit., p. 358.
30. For more on al-Muhajir’s influence, see Maysara al-Gharib, ‘The Hidden History: al-Zarqawi As I Knew Him’, posted on jihadi websites, September 2007; Charlie Winter and Abdullah K. al-Saud, ‘The Obscure Theologian Who Shaped ISIS’, The Atlantic, 4 December 2016. And Ziad al-Zaatari, ‘Takfiri Literature Makes Headway in Lebanon’, Alakhbar English, 11 September 2012; Hassan Abu Haniyeh, ‘Daesh’s Organisational Structure’, Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, 4 December 2014.
31. After the fall of the Taliban, Zarqawi moved to a camp in Khurmal in northern Iraq staffed by some of the veterans of the research efforts into unconventional weapons at Herat. At the Khurmal lab there was evidence group experimented with poison gases, such as hydrogen cyanide, and poisons. In November 2004, coalition forces discovered a Zarqawi-affiliated laboratory in Fallujah. Their analysis of the recovered materials revealed his associates ‘may have had the capability to employ an improvised chemical device of simple design [releasing] cyanogen chloride, hydrogen cyanide . . . called a “Mobtaker”’.
In 2004 Jordanian authorities announced they had thwarted a Zarqawi directed plot to set off a poison gas cloud in Amman involving a Herat-trained operative. Between 2006 and 2007, Islamic State [of Iraq] fighters carried out a series of chlorine bomb attacks in the country. In 2017, ISIS allegedly provided two brothers in Sydney with instructions on how to build a poison gas device. Their plot was thwarted in July of that year.
For more on ISIS and chemical weapons, see Chris Quillen, ‘The Islamic State’s Evolving Chemical Arsenal’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2016), pp. 1019–30; ‘Fallujah Update: Insurgent Chemical/Explosives Weapons Laboratory’, Combined Press Information Center, Multinational Force Iraq, 26 November 2004; Tenet, op. cit., pp. 277–8; Columb Strack, ‘The Evolution of the Islamic State’s Chemical Weapons Efforts’, CTC Sentinel 10:9 (2017); Andrew Zammit, ‘New Developments in the Islamic State’s External Operations: The 2017 Sydney Plane Plot’, CTC Sentinel 10:9 (2017).
32. It would become known as the al-Guhraba camp. Lia, op. cit., pp. 250–64.
33. Brian Fishman, ‘Revising the History of Al-Qai’da’s Original Meeting with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’, CTC Sentinel 9:10 (2016).
34. For more on al-Suri’s al-Ghuraba classes, see Cruickshank and Hage Ali (2007), op. cit.; Lia, op. cit., pp. 250–59.
35. Lia, op. cit., p. 107.
36. Ibid., pp. 156, 260.
37. For a translation of key extracts, see Lia, pp. 307–11 and 431. For more on al-Suri and WMD, see Paul Cruickshank and Mohanad Hage Ali, ‘Jihadist of Mass Destruction’, Washington Post, 11 June 2006.
38. Cruickshank and Hage Ali (2007), op. cit., pp. 1–14; Lia, op. cit., p. 314.
39. ‘Fight them in God’s Way. This is not imposed on you except in relation to yourself. And rouse the believers.’ Koran 4:84
40. Ahmed: 18406.
41. Khomeini once said: ‘We place this revolution in the hands of the Mahdi. If God pleases, let this revolution be the first step toward the appearance of the One Whom God Has Preserved, and let it pave the way for his arrival.’ Hosam Matar, ‘The Mahdi and Iran’s Foreign Policy’, Al-Akhbar, 11 January 2013.
42. In March 1999, Andrew Krepinevich, a defence policy analyst, testified before Congress that it would be difficult to transform the US military ‘in the absence of a strong external shock to the United States – a latter-day “Pearl Harbor” of sorts’. In September 2000, after Abu Hafs made the reference, the Project for a New American Century released a report which stated transformation would likely take a long time ‘absent some catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.’ See ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century’, The Project for the New American Century, September 2000; Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 (Ballantine Books, 2012), pp. 115, 483.
43. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told US interrogators that in either March or April 1999 bin Laden backed his plan to fly hijacked aircraft into targets in the United States. The 9/11 Commission stated bin Laden at Abu Hafs al-Masri’s urging, gave the green-light for KSM's 9/11 operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. Exhibit 941 ‘Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’, United States vs Moussaoui, p. 4; 9/11 Commission Report, p. 149.
44. 9/11 Commission Report, p. 232.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., pp. 1–7.
47. Ibid., p. 166.
48. ‘IOC allow Taliban observers at Sydney’, Reuters, 19 August 2000.
49. Quoted in multiple reports, including Rob Gloster, ‘IOC withdraws invitation to Taliban’, Associated Press, 25 August 2000.
My Seventh Life: Something Big
1. According to the 9/11 Commission, Mohamed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, flew to Spain on 8 July 2001 for a meeting with plot coordinator Ramzi Binalshibh. The latter said he had told Atta that ‘bin Laden wanted the attacks carried out as soon as possible’ because he ‘was worried about having so many operatives in the United States’. Atta replied he required about five to six weeks before he could provide an attack date. According to Binalshibh, Atta called him in mid-August to indicate that 11 September had been selected. Binalshibh warned two Hamburg associates that they should leave for Afghanistan without delay if they wanted to get there before it became more difficult. It was a similar message to the one Abu Hafs told me to deliver to the four jihadis in Britain. See 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 244, 249.
2. See Jackson, op. cit.
3. Stenersen (2017), op. cit., p. 146.
4. See the account of Abu Walid al-Masri (Mustafa Hamid) in Bergen (2006), op. cit., pp. 343–4; Anne Stenersen, Al-Qaeda’s Quest for Weapons of Mass Destruction: The History Behind the Hype (VDM, 2008), pp. 29–30.
5. Documents on a computer used by Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Hafs al-Masri indicated al-Qaeda leaders had earmarked $2,000 to $4,000 as ‘start-up costs’ for WMD development in what became known as the Zabadi project. According to the Wall Street Journal: ‘In a letter dated May 23 [1999] and written under one of Zawahiri’s aliases, the author reports discussing some “very useful ideas” during a visit to Abu Khabab . . . In a letter dated May 26 and stored in the computer under the same alias as earlier correspondence, the author says he was “very enthusiastic” about the Zabadi project . . .’
5. From what can be deduced from the Wall Street Journal disclosures, the correspondence on the project dried up after June 1999. That month a memo addressed to ‘Abu Hafs’ indicated that a dedicated laboratory still needed to be built. I never heard Abu Khabab talk about a project called Zabadi. Nor would he have been impressed by such a modest sum. Internal al-Qaeda letters held by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point depict Abu Khabab as a mercenary, angering senior jihadis at times for pocketing cash he was supposed to dedicate to research.
For more on the cooperation between Abu Khabab and Zawahiri, see Allan Cullison and Andrew Higgins, ‘Computer in Kabul holds chilling memos: PC apparently used by al-Qaeda leaders reveals details of four years of terrorism’, Wall Street Journal, 31 December 2001; Alan Cullison, ‘Inside al-Qaeda's Hard Drive’, The Atlantic, September 2004; Stenersen (2008), op. cit., pp. 35–6; Souad Mekhenet and Greg Miller, ‘He’s the son of Osama bin Laden’s bomb-maker. Then ISIS wanted him as one of their own’, Washington Post, 5 August 2016.
6. 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 257 and 534 (note 16).
7. 9/11 Commission Report: pp. 256–63; George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: The CIA at America’s Time of Crisis (HarperCollins, 2007), p. 149–152.
8. 9/11 Commission Report, p. 339, pp. 261–2.
9. See Exhibit 941, ‘Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’, United States vs Moussaoui, pp. 21, 28–31, 51.
10. ‘Moussaoui Statement of Facts, United States vs Zacaria
s Moussaoui’, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; Tenet, op. cit., pp. 201–2.
11. ‘Osama claims he has nukes: If US uses N-arms it will get same response’, Dawn, 10 November 2001.
12. But understandably, intelligence agencies continued to be concerned that al-Qaeda might develop a nuclear capability. In 2007, after retiring as director of the CIA, George Tenet wrote: ‘From the end of 2002 to the spring of 2003, we received a stream of reliable reporting that the senior al-Qa’ida leadership in Saudi Arabia was negotiating for the purchase of three Russian nuclear devices.’ He added that there had been shifting accounts on the question of WMD by al-Qaeda operatives in detention and that ‘our inability to determine the fate of the Russian devices presented great concern not only for me but for the White House.’ Tenet, op. cit., pp. 272–7. I believe the ‘shifting accounts’ were part of a misinformation campaign by al-Qaeda to keep the Americans guessing and embroil the CIA in a wild goose chase. I had learned from Abu Khabab and Abu Hamza al-Ghamdi before 9/11 that al-Qaeda had decided to plant a rumour it had obtained several nuclear warheads.
This was not the only example of alarmism. Weeks before the Iraq War, British officials told the BBC that al-Qaeda had gained the expertise and possibly the materials to build a radiological device, after sourcing radioactive isotopes and doing development work in a laboratory in the Afghan city of Herat. The BBC was told the intelligence was partly based on information received from British spies who had infiltrated al-Qaeda. I am sceptical the British had other agents inside al-Qaeda, but it cannot be ruled out. The information I provided British intelligence between 1998 and 2001 was almost the opposite of these claims. I never heard anything from Abu Khabab or others about al-Qaeda making progress in creating a radiological device. The timing of the leak should also raise eyebrows. See Frank Gardner, ‘Al-Qaeda “was making dirty bomb”, BBC News, 31 January 2003.
13. Saif al-Adel, ‘Jihadist Biography of the Slaughtering Leader Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi’ (2005).
14. ‘UK to deport Abu Qatada to Jordan’, Al Jazeera, 12 August 2005.
15. Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 146.
16. For more on on al-Qaeda’s preparations to attack Saudi Arabia, see Hegghammer (2008), op. cit., pp. 709–10; Brachman, op. cit., pp. 140–41.
17. ‘Abu Qatada Timeline’, BBC News, 10 May 2013.
18. ‘American killed in Saudi explosion’, BBC News, 7 October 2001.
19. Binder and Moodie, op. cit., p. 133.
20. For more details on the composition and effects of these poison gases, see: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ershdb/emergencyresponsecard_29750039.html, https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ershdb/emergencyresponsecard_29750038.html.
21. Brachman, op. cit., p. 141, and Hegghammer (2010), pp. 122 and 170–185.
22. By late 2002 al-Ayeri – or Saif al-Battar as he then styled himself – had emerged as one of the most prominent jihadi ideologues. He stressed in his books and on al-Qaeda web forums the need for eternal jihad against the West to stop it extinguishing the soul of Islam. A tract he published after 9/11, Constants on the Path to Jihad, was later popularized among English-speaking jihadis by the American Yemeni preacher Anwar al-Awlaki. In another treatise, ‘The Future of Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula After the Fall of Baghdad’, he presciently argued that the US invasion of Iraq would result in a quagmire for the United States and stoke jihadism in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. Hegghammer (2010), op. cit., p. 173; J.M. Berger, ‘The Enduring Appeal of Al-’Awlaqi’s “Constants on the Path of Jihad” ’, CTC Sentinel 4:10 (2011).
23. Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine (2006), pp. 195–8. Suskind’s book contains a detailed account of the mubtakkar plot against New York. There are several differences between what Suskind was told by his sources and my own recollections.
24. Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister interviews with senior former US counterterrorism officials, 2015–2017. (Subsequently cited as Cruickshank & Lister US CT interviews.)
25. Ibid.
26. Suskind, op. cit., pp. 195–8.
27. See George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: The CIA During America’s Time of Crisis (HarperCollins, 2007), pp. 273–4. The poison gas plot against the New York subway was also confirmed by other officials. Robert S. Mueller, III, Director Federal Bureau of Investigation, The City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio, 23 June 2006; ‘Senator: NYC subway plot by al-Qaida was real’, Associated Press, 21 June 2006.
28. Ray Kelly, Vigilance: My Life Serving America and Protecting Its Empire City (Hachette Books, 2015), p. 213.
29. Tenet, op. cit., pp. 273–4.
30. Suskind, op. cit., pp. 219–20.
31. Kelly, op. cit., p. 213. Bokhowa’s arrest and the discovery of the mubtakkar blueprints on his computer is also referenced in Suskind, op. cit., pp. 192–5.
32. ‘Bahrain breaks up terror cell’, Arab News, 16 February 2003; ‘Bahrain smashes “terrorist cell”’, BBC News, 15 February 2003.
33. Ibid.
34. Suskind, op. cit., p. 195.
35. Suskind, op. cit., pp. 197–8; Kelly, op. cit., p. 213; Cruickshank and Lister US CT interviews.
36. Sammy Salama and Edith Bursac, ‘Jihadist Capabilities and the Diffusion of Knowledge’, in Ackerman and Tamsett (eds.), op. cit., pp. 112–3.
37. ‘A successful subway attack would cause widespread panic, shut down the system for many days, overload health care facilities, and leave a legacy of fear and anxiety among the American public’. Salama (2006), op. cit., p. 4.
38. Tenet, op. cit., p. 273.
39. In a report submitted to the United Nations in April 2003, the
United States stated: ‘We judge that there is a high probability that al-Qaeda will attempt an attack using a CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear] weapon within the next two years.’ Transcript: Anderson Cooper 360° – ‘Does al-Qaeda have chemical weapons?’, CNN, 10 June 2003.
40. The fatwah, ‘A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels’, was dated March 2003 according to jihadi websites and probably took at least several weeks to prepare. It was published online in May 2003. The fatwah can be viewed at: www.ilmway.com/site/maqdis/MS_860 and is discussed in Ackerman and Tamsett (eds), op. cit., pp. 29, 74, and 103; Stenersen (2008), op. cit., p. 32; Tenet, op. cit., p. 274.
41. Fahd selectively quoted from hadith to try to circumvent Koran chapter 2 verse 205 (‘And when he goes away, he strives throughout the land to cause corruption therein and destroy crops and animals. And God does not like corruption’), which some jihadis believed prohibited biological and nuclear attacks.
42. Tenet, op. cit., pp. 273–6; Al-Battar media via Twitter, 24 August 2015.
43. Salama (July–August 2006), op. cit., pp. 2–5; Salama and Bursac, op. cit., pp. 110–12; Stenersen (2008), op. cit., pp. 61–2, 79.
44. Dexter Filkins provides a brilliant account of the operation in ‘Aftereffects: Presidential Theft; Bank Official Says Hussein’s Son Took $1 Billion in Cash’, New York Times, 6 May 2003.
45. Warrick, op. cit., pp. 69–71.
46. For more on Zarqawi's insurgency see Ibid., pp. 101–223.
47. See the Suicide Attack Database (1974 to 2016) of the Chicago Project on Security & Threats at the University of Chicago. Also Katherine R. Seifert and Clark McCauley, ‘Suicide Bombers in Iraq, 2003–2010: Disaggregating Targets Can Reveal Insurgent Motives and Priorities’, Terrorism and Political Violence 26:5 (2014).
48. In 2005 Zarqawi stated: ‘I met with Shaykh Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir [in Afghanistan]. A conversation ensued between us on the ruling of martyrdom seeking operations. The Shaykh was of the view that they are permissible. I read his valuable research on the issue and listened to many of his recordings. Eventually, God opened my heart to his position so that not only did I come to see them as permissible, but as desirable, too.’
See Abdullah al-Saud, ‘The Spiritual Teacher and His Truants: The Influence and Relevance of Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (June 2017).
49. Al-Zaatari, op. cit.; Winter and al-Saud, op. cit.; ‘Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi under influence: one mentor?’, Alleyesonjihadism (blog), 15 May 2012; Al-Gharib, op. cit.; Jim Muir, ‘ “Islamic State”: Raqqa’s loss seals rapid rise and fall’, BBC News, 17 October 2017; al-Saud, op. cit.
50. Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (Simon & Schuster, 2016; updated edition), p. 30; Loretta Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the New Generation (Seven Stories Press, 2005), p. 157.
51. For more on how couriers were tracked in the hunt for bin Laden, see Mark Bowden, The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012), pp. 116–8, 247–8.
52. For an account of the attacks, see Owen Bowcott and David Pallister, ‘The message is: you’re not safe here’, Guardian, 14 May 2003.
53. Hegghammer (2010), op. cit., p. 203–4; Brachman, op. cit., p. 143.
54. Hegghammer (2010), op. cit., pp. 204–10.
55. Ibid., p. 205; Brachman, p. 148.
56. For more on al-Qaeda’s terrorist campaign in Saudi Arabia, see Hegghammer (2008), op. cit., pp. 701–15.
57. McCants (2015), op. cit., p. 115.
58. Koran 4:75.
59. See Lawrence Wright, ‘The Terror Web’, New Yorker, 2 August 2004. It would take MI6 months to corroborate my information about al-Rabia.
60. Iran and al-Qaeda share an enmity towards the United States and the House of Saud, but there were limits to Iran’s tolerance of al-Qaeda on its soil. In 2003, Iran detained several senior al-Qaeda operatives including Saif al-Adel, Abu Mohammed al-Masri, Abu Khayr al-Masri. They were housed for years inside a military compound in the Tehran area along with members of bin Laden’s family, including his son Hamza. By 2015 it was reported they had been all released. Notwithstanding the high profile detentions, Iran continued to allow al-Qaeda operatives to use the country as a transit point for operatives and funds and, according to the US government, still does to this day. For more on al-Qaeda and Iran, see Assaf Moghadam, ‘Marriage of Convenience: The Evolution of Iran and al-Qa’ida’s Tactical Cooperation’, CTC Sentinel 10:4 (2017).