August 29, 2001. Ramzi Binalshibh was awakened at 3:00 AM in his Hamburg apartment by the sound of the phone ringing. “Hello?” he answered groggily.
“Hello,” a voice replied. He instantly recognized it as that of his friend and former roommate Mohammed Atta.
“What’s going on?” Binalshibh asked.
“One of my friends related a riddle to me and I cannot solve it, and I called you so that you can solve it for me,” Atta told him.
“Okay.”
“Two sticks, a dash, and a cake with a stick down,” Atta continued, and then he stopped speaking. Binalshibh was silent, waiting for Atta to say something else.
“Is this the riddle?” Binalshibh asked. He was confused, and half asleep. “You wake me from a deep sleep to tell me this riddle? Two sticks and I don’t know what else?”
There was still silence from Atta on the other end. He was waiting for his friend to understand the code the two had regularly used in the past. Binalshibh finally comprehended. “Okay,” he said to Atta. “Tell your friend that he has nothing to worry about. It’s such a sweet riddle.”
“Good-bye.”
There was more Binalshibh wanted to say to his friend, as he knew he might never speak to him again, but it was too risky to do so on the open line. KSM had explicitly warned them to be careful, and there was too much at stake to take any risks. So Binalshibh kept his emotions to himself and put the receiver down.
He tied up loose ends in Hamburg, and on September 5, he went to Pakistan. From there he sent a trusted messenger to bin Laden and KSM, who were in Afghanistan, with the message: “The big attack on America will be on Tuesday, 11 September.”
That was the meaning of Atta’s riddle: the two sticks represented the number 11; the dash was a space; and the cake with a stick upside down was a nine. Together that made 11-9: 11 September. It meant that Atta had all his hijackers in place and had picked the date for al-Qaeda’s planes operation.
Ramzi Binalshibh was born in 1972 in Ghayl Bawazir, Yemen, and first tried getting to the United States in 1995, but his visa application was rejected. The United States at the time was suspicious of Yemeni visa seekers, believing they’d attempt to become illegal immigrants. Binalshibh tried moving to Germany—pretending to be a Sudanese citizen and applying for asylum under the name Ramzi Omar. He lived in Hamburg while this request was being investigated, and he attended mosques there, but eventually the request was denied. After returning to Yemen he then went back to Germany, this time under his real name and as a student. He was permitted to stay.
He continued attending mosques in Hamburg, now more regularly, and soon met an Egyptian student named Mohammed Atta. Born in Kafr el-Sheikh in 1968, Atta had moved to Hamburg to further his education in architecture. While they had different personalities—Atta was serious, dogmatic, and a focused student, and Binalshibh was outgoing, carefree, and a poor student—they shared an extremist outlook and became fast friends.
They eventually got an apartment together, which they shared with a student from the United Arab Emirates, Marwan al-Shehhi. Younger than Mohammed Atta and Binalshibh (he was born in 1978), like them Shehhi had become more religious in Germany, and frequented the same mosques.
Binalshibh became close friends with a Lebanese student named Ziad Jarrah, whom he also met at a Hamburg mosque. In Beirut, Jarrah had been known to regularly attend parties and discos, and initially in Germany he kept up that lifestyle. At some point he began dating a young woman named Aysel Senguen, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, and regularly slept over at her apartment. While he gradually appeared to become increasingly dogmatic in his faith, he never gave up his relationship with Senguen.
The four men regularly got together in the apartment shared by Atta, Binalshibh, and Shehhi to discuss jihad and Islamic theology. They propelled each other to become ever more observant Muslims. Increasingly, they viewed themselves as devoted religious messengers. They took themselves very seriously. Atta even wrote on his rent checks that he resided at Dar el Ansar (“house of the followers”).
The group was influenced by a preacher named Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who often spoke at Hamburg’s al-Quds Mosque. Zammar had fought in Afghanistan in the first Soviet jihad, and he told his listeners that they, too, had a responsibility to wage jihad.
The four men initially resolved to travel to Chechnya to wage jihad but were advised to go to Afghanistan instead because of the difficulties of moving around Chechnya. To effect this plan, they met with Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a relative of Abu Hafs al-Mauritani’s. Slahi, a member of the al-Qaeda shura council, headed the religious committee. He told the four men to get visas for Pakistan and how best to proceed to Karachi. From Pakistan they were taken by al-Qaeda operatives to Afghanistan, where they met bin Laden. After some indoctrination, they pledged bayat to him.
Their arrival was celebrated by bin Laden, KSM, and other al-Qaeda leaders working on developing the planes operation. Here were four men who were perfect for the plot. As they were based in Germany, they would have an easier time getting U.S. visas than operatives based in Afghanistan or Pakistan. And their education levels meant that they were probably intelligent enough to qualify for pilot training.
The mission was presented to them, and they accepted it. It was the perfect opportunity to wage the ultimate jihad and have their names heralded as the greatest of mujahideen. Al-Qaeda leaders encouraged this thinking, reinforcing the idea that the martyrs would receive seventy-two virgins in heaven and would be celebrated as heroes across the Muslim world. They were put into al-Qaeda’s special operations branch, the organization’s name for its terrorism branch. Led by the head of the military committee, Abu Hafs al-Masri (whose given name was Mohammed Atef), and the head of the security committee, Saif al-Adel, the branch itself has individual cells and operations, each functioning separately from the others for security reasons.
Mohammed Atef—the former Egyptian police officer whose services Zawahiri had offered bin Laden back in the late 1980s, and who had risen to prominence in al-Qaeda—briefed them on the details of what they were to do, and they were also trained in communicating with each other through code.
While they were in Afghanistan, bin Laden kept them segregated from most other al-Qaeda operatives, as the plot was kept highly confidential. Only trusted al-Qaeda members, among them bin Laden chauffeur Salim Hamdan and Ali al-Bahlul, bin Laden’s propagandist, were allowed to interact with them. Bahlul roomed with Jarrah when he was in Afghanistan. The group filmed individual martyrdom videos, directed by Bahlul. As the four had only minimal knowledge of classical Arabic and the Quran, they had to go through several takes before their pronunciation seemed genuine. It was a source of amusement to the four and to Bahlul, and after each mispronunciation they would burst into laughter.
After their training was complete, the four returned to Germany, and, following instructions, they began to assume a less radical appearance. They shaved their beards, wore Western clothes, and stopping visiting extremist mosques. They also started looking into flight training. An al-Qaeda facilitator named Ammar al-Baluchi (Ali Abdul Aziz Ali), KSM’s nephew, sent them flight simulator programs. Ultimately, the four decided that the German flight schools they had seen weren’t good enough, and that it was best to learn to fly in the United States. They requested approval from bin Laden, and he gave this new plan his blessing.
Before applying for U.S. visas, the four applied for new passports, claiming that they had lost their originals. They worried that the Pakistani visas on their passports might harm their prospects of being given U.S. visas. When the new passports arrived, they applied for the visas. On January 18, 2000, Shehhi’s came through. There was nothing for a few months, and then on May 18 Atta’s came through, and on May 25 Jarrah’s application was approved. Binalshibh’s, however, was rejected. He attempted three more times to get a visa, but each time, his application was rejected—not because of suspicions about terrorism but for the same reason his visa application had been rejected a few years earlier: he was a Yemeni, and U.S. authorities at the time were nervous that Yemenis would try to stay in the country illegally.
As he couldn’t get into the United States, bin Laden and KSM tasked Binalshibh with being KSM’s main assistant for the plot and the liaison between the German cell and the al-Qaeda leadership. Nawaf al-Hazmi, one of the thirty operatives who had been singled out two years before by the leadership for special training from Khallad at Loghar, was selected by bin Laden as Atta’s “deputy.”
Once Atta, Shehhi, and Jarrah were in the United States, Binalshibh arranged for money to be wired to them and exchanged coded phone calls with Atta, who by that time had been appointed by al-Qaeda to lead the operation in the United States. In their phone calls, Atta and Binalshibh pretended to be students discussing their course work, but in reality a word such as “architecture” referred to the World Trade Center, and “arts” referred to the Pentagon. The two men also met a few times in Europe, for instance in Berlin in January 2001 and in Madrid in July 2001.
Binalshibh’s inability to get a visa was problematic for al-Qaeda, as their plan was to hijack four planes and simultaneously crash them into four buildings: the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol. KSM would later claim to CIA interrogators that he originally planned to use ten planes for 9/11, the tenth to be flown himself. He said he had planned to land the plane at a U.S. airport, kill all male passengers on board, and then give a speech to the world attacking the United States for supporting Israel and repressive Arab governments.
It’s clear, however, that this was never a real plan but rather an effort by KSM to boost his credentials—consistently, his motivation was always to make himself appear to be the ultimate terrorist mastermind, affording him greater notoriety than that enjoyed by his nephew Ramzi Yousef. His description of himself is also likely the product of his having watched too many of the terrorist movies that he screened for the 9/11 hijackers. The initial al-Qaeda plan was to launch attacks in the United States and Southeast Asia simultaneously, but the latter plan was abandoned as being overly complicated.
One person al-Qaeda was cultivating as another potential pilot was Zacarias Moussaoui, a Moroccan with French citizenship. His French passport would allow him to obtain a U.S. visa easily. The problem with Moussaoui, however, was that he was not very intelligent; the leadership wasn’t confident that he was up to the role. Moussaoui thought of himself as a tough guy, and he liked showing off his strength by wrestling with other al-Qaeda members. Abu Jandal enjoyed angering Moussaoui by telling him that he could beat him in a wrestling match, and then refusing to wrestle with him. His position as bin Laden’s bodyguard made him Moussaoui’s superior, and there was nothing Moussaoui could do but fume and complain.
In 2000 KSM sent Moussaoui to Malaysia for flight training, but he couldn’t find a school he liked, and instead he got involved in other terrorist operations there. KSM later instructed him to travel to London in October, and Binalshibh visited him in December. On February 23, 2001, Moussaoui went to the United States and attended flight school in Oklahoma and Minnesota, where he didn’t perform well. He was arrested on August 16, 2001, and charged with an immigration violation after a flight instructor became suspicious and reported him.
Given Moussaoui’s unimpressive track record, al-Qaeda’s leaders were happy when a better candidate for fourth pilot presented himself in Afghanistan in 2000. Among the new recruits at al-Farouq was a man who was already a trained pilot: Hani Hanjour. Born in Saudi Arabia, in 1991 Hanjour had studied English in Arizona. He returned to Saudi Arabia and in 1996 moved back to the United States to learn how to fly, obtaining a private pilot’s license in 1997 and then a commercial pilot’s certificate. After that he went back to Saudi Arabia to find work.
When bin Laden and KSM discovered that they had a trained pilot in one of their camps—on joining al-Qaeda, new recruits were asked if they had any specific skills—they enlisted him. He accepted the mission readily; it was considered an honor for a new recruit to be handpicked by bin Laden.
After teaching Hanjour the code words he needed to know, al-Qaeda’s leaders instructed him to procure a visa for travel to the United States. Khallad explained to him how to get in touch with Nawaf al-Hazmi once he was in the United States. On June 20, 2000, he returned to Saudi Arabia, and on September 25 he received a U.S. visa.
This group of would-be pilots joined the ranks of those already selected by bin Laden to be part of the operation—Khalid al-Mihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Khallad. Born in Mecca, Hazmi and Mihdhar were Saudis, and they had no problem getting U.S. visas. Khallad’s visa application, however, was rejected because he was a Yemeni.
Mihdhar and Hazmi were to be among the muscle hijackers—those whose task it would be to overwhelm the crew and any troublesome passengers. They were sent, with other hijackers, to al-Qaeda’s Mes Aynak camp, in Afghanistan, where they underwent physical fitness training and received instruction in combat and weapons. They were also given the best available food in order to keep them healthy and boost their spirits. KSM personally helped train both the pilot and the nonpilot hijackers, teaching them how to hide knives in their bags and how to slit passengers’ throats. He made them practice slitting the throats of goats, sheep, and camels.
KSM and others briefed them about the United States at a facility nicknamed by many involved “The House of Martyrs.” (KSM nicknamed it “The House of Ghamdis” because a few of the hijackers were from the Ghamdi tribe.) KSM taught them English phrases, showed them how to read phone books and make reservations, and had them read aviation magazines and watch movies with hijacking scenes. Among the phrases taught were “get down,” “don’t move,” “stay in your seat,” and “if anyone moves I’ll kill you.”
After the training, Hazmi and Mihdhar traveled to Kuala Lumpur, where a 9/11 summit meeting took place. From there the two men departed for Bangkok with Khallad. Upon Nibras and Quso’s delivery, to Khallad, of the $36,000 in cash, Mihdhar and Hazmi purchased first-class tickets to Los Angeles, leaving Bangkok on January 15, 2000.
Their fellow muscle hijackers arrived in the United States in the summer of 2001. Most were Saudis (twelve of the thirteen), and most were unemployed, unmarried, and uneducated. They had applied for visas in Saudi Arabia, and, once those applications were approved, they had traveled to Afghanistan for training. Atta and Shehhi coordinated their arrival in the United States, found them places to stay, and settled them in.
KSM’s nephew Ammar al-Baluchi and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, an al-Qaeda financial operative, helped coordinate their travel and money both before departure and once they were in the United States. Upon arrival the hijackers were given Baluchi’s or Hawsawi’s number. Also promptly on arrival, they opened bank accounts and deposited the money they had brought with them. Each hijacker had been given six to eight thousand dollars by KSM or Hawsawi and had been told to keep a few thousand for himself and to give the rest to Atta.
On August 4, 2001, an al-Qaeda member named Mohammed al-Qahtani landed in Orlando, Florida, on Virgin Atlantic Airlines Flight 15 but was refused entry by a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent and shipped out of the United States on a later flight. As he was departing, he vowed, “I will be back.” On August 28, 2001, Ammar al-Baluchi applied for a one-week travel visa to the United States, beginning September 4, 2001. The visa would expire on September 11. Baluchi’s request was denied.
Atta’s biggest challenge was finding four flights that would be in the air at the same time on one day—and on planes that Shehhi, Jarrah, Hanjour, and he himself knew how to fly. He ran a number of searches on Travelocity and found that everything matched up on September 11, 2001. Once that was established, he phoned Binalshibh to give him the message.
Once the date was set, the hijackers went out to enjoy their last days alive. Some attended strip joints; others went to bars and got drunk. Atta was spotted doing a series of shots. While it might seem surprising that these men who were later proclaimed by al-Qaeda to be religious martyrs were debasing themselves, the reality is that most weren’t truly religious. At best, they had only a superficial knowledge of Islam, and most were either simple people swayed by convincing recruiters or macho individuals looking for a way to look tough and impress friends. But even while on missions, they never fully left their old lifestyles behind. Jarrah even traveled back to Germany a few times to hook up with his girlfriend. This activity was common across al-Qaeda. Nashiri, the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, for example, at one point lived with a prostitute in Dubai.
In anticipation of the attack, and with the knowledge that the United States would likely strike back hard, bin Laden moved continuously from Kabul to Khost to Jalalabad with his most trusted aides. None of the bodyguards, and not even Salim Hamdan, the driver, ever knew the destination of the convoy. A minute or so before they were about to leave, bin Laden would tell them.
Sometimes bin Laden would order a change of direction mid-trip. At times he would just stop en route and order them to make camp. At times he himself had no idea where they would end up. He would camp in the middle of nowhere so he could not easily be found. They wouldn’t even know their exact coordinates. These procedures made bin Laden feel safer.
In Kabul bin Laden spent a lot of time in the homes of Abu al-Khair al-Masri and Mohammed Saleh. Former EIJ shura council members and close associates of Ayman al-Zawahiri, they were the two Egyptian Islamic Jihad leaders who joined the al-Qaeda shura council following the March 2001 official merger of al-Qaeda and EIJ.
After the merger, bin Laden and Zawahiri went around visiting al-Qaeda training camps and facilities, accompanied by Abu Hafs al-Masri, who had become the number three in the group (Zawahiri had taken the number two spot), and a Kuwaiti named Salman Abu Ghaith, whose importance in the group had been steadily growing; he became the spokesman for the organization. Later, all four appeared in al-Qaeda’s propaganda videos. The name al-Qaeda was officially changed to Qaeda al-Jihad, a combining of the names al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The name change was purely a formality, and the organization is still commonly known as al-Qaeda.
On September 11, 2001, bin Laden seemed especially excitable to those who knew him. Only a few members of his entourage knew why. Late in the afternoon, bin Laden told Ali al-Bahlul to switch on the satellite in his media van so they could watch the news. Bahlul tried but couldn’t get any reception. Bin Laden told him instead to get the news on the radio. They alternated between channels, first the BBC, then Voice of America, till they got a consistent signal. For about forty-five minutes they listened to regular news reports. Finally a news flash came in: at 8:46 AM in the United States (EDT), a plane had hit the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The report said that it seemed to have been an accident.
But bin Laden knew that American Airlines Flight 11, scheduled to fly from Logan International Airport in Boston to Los Angeles International Airport, had been successfully hijacked by Mohammed Atta, Abdulaziz al-Omari, Waleed al-Shehri, Wail al-Shehri, and Satam al-Suqami. Before the plane crashed, a flight attendant had reported that a passenger had been stabbed and that it was hard for him to breath, leading investigators to later suspect that Mace had been used. But this report didn’t get through till later.
Bin Laden smiled, and the al-Qaeda members with him started celebrating. “Allah Hu Akbar” (God is great), they shouted, firing their AK-47s into the air. Most were simply happy that the “Great Snake,” the United States, had been hit. But based on bin Laden’s smile and the lack of surprise on his face, they began to suspect that this had been an al-Qaeda plot.
“Calm down, calm down. Wait. There is more,” bin Laden said, raising his hand to silence the celebrants. Here was confirmation of their suspicions. They were silent, wondering what was next. Only a few senior al-Qaeda members knew what to expect.
Another news flash came: at 9:03 AM, a second plane had hit the south tower of the World Trade Center. This was no longer looking like an accident, the newscaster said. The two most visible skyscrapers in New York City were going up in smoke. People were trapped inside and jumping out of windows.
Bin Laden’s smile broadened. United Airlines Flight 175, scheduled to fly from Logan International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, had been successfully hijacked by Marwan al-Shehhi, Fayez Banihammad, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, and Mohand al-Shehri. Bin Laden knew all the hijackers personally. He had approved their selection and helped guide their training. He was elated. Once again the al-Qaeda members present started shouting and firing into the air. “Calm down, wait, there is more,” bin Laden said again.
The next breaking news flash said that a plane had hit the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 AM. It was beginning to look like a coordinated attack, the announcer said. “This can’t be a coincidence.”
“What’s going on?” someone asked. Bin Laden grinned.
American Airlines Flight 77, flying from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, manned by Hani Hanjour, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, Majed Moqed, and Salem al-Hazmi, had succeeded in its mission. The celebrations started again, and once again bin Laden told them to hold off. “There is more,” he said.
As al-Qaeda operatives listened intently to the news, more updates on what was going on in the United States came in: reports were that President Bush was in hiding, and that both towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed. Smoke was billowing from the ground. “It’s horrific,” the announcer said. Fires raged through the Pentagon. Casualties were unknown but estimated initially to be at tens of thousands. The Great Snake had been brought to its knees by al-Qaeda.
Then news of a fourth plane came: at 10:03 AM, United Airlines Flight 93, traveling from Newark International Airport, in New Jersey, to San Francisco International Airport, crashed in a field in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania. There had been a Mayday message at 9:28, and at 9:31 one of the hijackers had announced that he had a bomb. This later led investigators to suspect that the hijackers had used fake bombs. Some passengers who used their cell phones to make calls reported that the hijackers wore explosives on their belts.
Bin Laden was disappointed. He told his followers that the Americans must have shot the plane down. Ziad Jarrah, Ahmed al-Nami, Ahmed al-Haznawi, and Saeed al-Ghamdi did not reach their target. But given the success of the first three planes, bin Laden’s disappointment didn’t last long.
The al-Qaeda leader announced that they would head to Mohammed Saleh’s house for a proper celebration. In one of the cars, a pickup truck that Hamdan was driving, bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri sat together in the back and discussed the operation. “If the Americans hadn’t shot that plane it could have hit that big dome,” bin Laden told Zawahiri, referring to the Capitol.
At Saleh’s house, the celebration began. Many of al-Qaeda’s top leaders were present. KSM came to the house and briefed those present on the operation. He explained the background and training involved and announced the names of the martyrs. Many of those present who knew the hijackers well felt proud of their association with them.
“May God Bless Mokhtar for this great work,” said bin Laden, using a nickname for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Bin Laden then asked KSM to travel to Kandahar to brief Abu Hafs. Because of back problems, he hadn’t been able to leave Kandahar when everyone else had been evacuated; driving along the rugged roads would have been too painful.
Bin Laden then ended the celebration and told his convoy to head toward Khost.
September 11, 2001. “Hi, Heather, how are you?” I was speaking on the phone from an office in the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa; Heather was in New York. We had finally been allowed to return to Yemen a week earlier, and I was busy with my colleagues reestablishing our operation against al-Qaeda members responsible for the USS Cole bombing.
As I asked that question, Joe Ennis —Alabama Joe—rushed into the room. “Ali, a plane hit the World Trade Center,” he said breathlessly. “We’re watching the news in the ambassador’s office. Come quickly!”
“You mean a helicopter?” I asked Joe.
“No, they said a plane,” he replied.
“Ali,” Heather said into my other ear, “the TV is showing smoke coming out of the World Trade Center.” I repeated that to Joe and he let out an expletive.
“Switch on the TV,” she replied. “One of the buildings is on fire.”
My gut told me that it was something bigger, but I didn’t want to alarm Heather. “I have to go and see what’s going on, and I’ll call you back. I love you.”
“I love you.”
I dialed John O’Neill’s number in New York. He had just started his new job in the World Trade Center. His phone rang and rang and then went to voicemail. Joe Ennis rushed into the office again, screaming: “Another plane just hit the World Trade Center!”
“What?”
“It’s a passenger plane. Oh my God, a big plane.”
I tried calling John again. Once again the call went to voicemail, and again I hung up without leaving a message. I tried yet again and got his voicemail, but this time I left a message: “John, it’s Ali, I just heard what happened. I’m in Yemen, give me a call.”
I ran into the ambassador’s office. Ambassador Bodine had left the country, and the new ambassador, Edmund Hull, had not yet arrived, so the office was empty, but the television was on, and all the agents, the entire team from the New York field office, had gathered to watch the breaking news from New York. For about a minute we stood silently, in shock, unable to look away from the screen, as images of what had just happened were shown again and again: The first plane flying in… the burst of flames… and then the second plane.
Forcing myself to look away from the screen, I picked up the phone on the ambassador’s desk and tried calling the FBI’s New York office. The call wouldn’t go through. “Are you speaking to New York?” a colleague asked me, seeing the receiver in my hand.
“I’m trying,” I said. “Lines are tied up.” Being unable to reach headquarters only increased the tension and fear people felt. I kept trying to get through, but again and again I heard a busy signal. On the tenth attempt, my call went through to one of my colleagues in New York.
“We’ve just seen the images here,” I said. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“We’re trying to find out. At the moment, we’ve got about thirty agents who were in the vicinity missing. We’re treating this as a terrorist attack.”
After checking the embassy’s security and loading our own personal weapons, we all gathered in a secure conference room and waited for news from New York. More bad news reached us by television: bomb threats in DC, more planes allegedly hijacked, and finally the tragic news of United Airlines Flight 63 crashing over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Tom Donlon waited on the phone for fifteen minutes and at last was patched through to headquarters. The call lasted only a couple of minutes, and Tom didn’t say much other than “yes, I understand.”
“Okay,” he said, putting the phone down, “the instructions are for everyone to evacuate Yemen immediately and get on the first plane back to New York. Yemen is deemed unsafe. We don’t yet know who was behind the attacks in New York and Washington, or if more attacks are coming. But given the problems we’ve had in Yemen in the past, we’re to get out. Pack up and be prepared to leave in a few hours.”
For once none of us disagreed with an order to return home. As important as our mission in Yemen was, it could wait. Thousands of Americans were reported killed, and our colleagues were missing. We wanted to get home to help. We packed our bags, shredded documents that we weren’t taking with us, and, the next day, September 12, we headed to the airport.
“Ali!” The CIA [3 words redacted] in Sanaa came up to me as I waited in the airport with the rest of the team to board the plane.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“FBI headquarters is trying to reach you. You need to speak to them.”
“Who at headquarters? What do they want?”
“I don’t know, but they’ve sent a number.” I asked Tom Donlon if he knew why I was wanted, but he was unaware that headquarters was trying to reach me.
Tom and I went to a quiet corner outside the airport terminal, where our team’s communication technician mounted a portable dish and established a secure satellite line. The number belonged to Dina Corsi, the FBI analyst in headquarters who had clashed with Steve Bongardt during the June 11, 2001, meeting in New York. “Ali, there has been a change of plans,” she said. “You and Bob McFadden need to stay in Yemen.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “We have been attacked back home; we need to figure out who did this. Whatever is going on here can wait.”
“We do need to figure out what just happened, which is why we need you to stay in Yemen. It’s about what happened here. Quso is our best lead at the moment.”
“Quso? What does he have to do with this?”
“The [1 word redacted] has some intelligence for you to look over.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to Bob. We’ll stay.”
“One final thing, your instructions from the top are to identify those behind the attacks, and I quote, ‘by any means necessary.’”
“We’ll find them,” I replied.
“One more thing, Ali,” Dina said.
“Yes?”
“Be safe.”
I ran to Bob, who was waiting for me to board the plane, and repeated the instructions I had just received. “‘By any means necessary,’” I said, giving him the exact command I had been told. He nodded gravely. We assembled our FBI and NCIS colleagues who were also waiting to board and told them about our change of plan. Tom Donlon and Steve Corbett, the NCIS supervisor on the ground, decided to stay as well to help with the investigation, and two New York SWAT team agents also volunteered to stay and provide protection. Everyone else got on the plane, and we returned to the embassy.
“Let’s go to my office,” the [1 word redacted] said. He and I were alone, and he closed the door. He took out a file and silently handed it me.
Inside were three pictures of al-Qaeda operatives taken in Kuala Lumpur, [10 words redacted] and photos were all dated January 2000 and had been provided to the CIA by the Malaysian [6 words redacted] agency.
For about a minute I stared at the pictures and the report, not quite believing what I had in my hands. We had asked the CIA repeatedly during the USS Cole investigation if they knew anything about why Khallad had been in Malaysia and if they recognized the number of the pay phone in Kuala Lumpur that we suspected he had used. Each time we had asked—in November 2000, April 2001, and July 2001—they had said that they knew nothing.
But here in the file was a very different answer: they had in fact known since January 2000 that Khallad had met with other al-Qaeda operatives in Malaysia. They had pictures of them meeting and a detailed report of their comings and goings from Malaysian [1 word redacted].
As for the phone number, [2 words redacted] listed it as being assigned to a pay phone that the al-Qaeda operatives were using to communicate with colleagues everywhere. The phone booth was across from a condominium owned by an al-Qaeda sympathizer in Malaysia, which was where all the al-Qaeda members had stayed. Our deduction that Khallad had been using it was right.
The [3 words redacted] Khallad’s travels: [3 words redacted] he had attempted to fly to Singapore but had been rejected because he hadn’t had a visa. He had returned to the Kuala Lumpur condominium and then had traveled to Bangkok. The [3 words redacted] that Khallad had been using a fraudulent Yemeni passport, under the name Sa’eed bin Saleh.
[6 words redacted] given to the CIA by the Malaysians in January 2000. None of it had been passed to us, despite our specifically having asked about Khallad and the phone number and its relevance to the Cole investigation and to national security. I later found out that the three photos [3 words redacted] that the [1 word redacted] gave me were the three photos shown, with no explanation, to Steve and my Cole colleagues at the June 11, 2001, meeting in New York. The Cole team had asked about the photos—who the people were, why they were taken, and so on—but [1 word redacted], the CIA official present, said nothing.
Also in the file [3 words redacted] that Khallad had flown first class to Bangkok with Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. We soon would learn that they were listed as passengers on American Airlines Flight 77, which had hit the Pentagon. Based upon the chronology in the report, it was clear that the day after Quso and Nibras had met Khallad and given him the $36,000, Mihdhar and Hazmi had bought first-class tickets to the United States. Was that $36,000 used to buy their tickets? And had the rest of the money been intended for their use in the United States? My gut told me yes.
My hands started shaking. I didn’t know what to think. “They just sent these reports,” the [1 word redacted] said, seeing my reaction. I walked out of the room, sprinted down the corridor to the bathroom, and fell to the floor next to a stall. There I threw up.
I sat on the floor for a few minutes, although it felt like hours. What I had just seen went through my mind again and again. The same thought kept looping back: “If they had all this information since January 2000, why the hell didn’t they pass it on?” My whole body was shaking.
I heard one of the SWAT agents asking, “Ali, are you okay?” He had seen me run to the bathroom and had followed me in.
“I am fine.”
I got myself to the sink, washed out my mouth, and splashed some water on my face. I covered my face with a paper towel for a few moments. I was still trying to process the fact that the information I had requested about major al-Qaeda operatives, information the CIA had claimed they knew nothing about, had been in the agency’s hands since January 2000.
The SWAT agent asked, “What’s wrong, bud? What the hell did he tell you?”
“They knew, they knew.”
Another agent came in to check what was happening, and I told him what had just happened and why we had been ordered to stay in Yemen. We hugged and walked out.
I went back down the corridor to the [4 words redacted] office to get the file. “Ali?” he asked as I walked in. I looked him squarely in the face and saw that he was blushing and looked flustered. He clearly understood the significance of what the agency had not passed on.
I didn’t have time to play the blame game. New York and Washington were still burning, colleagues of ours were missing, and we all had to focus on catching those responsible. “Is there anything else you haven’t passed along?” I asked.
He didn’t say anything, and I walked out, file in hand.
I went to the room where Tom Donlon, Bob McFadden, and Steve Corbett were working and dropped the file on the table. “The [1 word redacted] just gave this to me,” I said.
Bob looked up and saw the anger on my face. He didn’t say anything, just took the file. Bob knew me well enough to know that something was very wrong. He looked through the contents and then turned to me in outrage. “I can’t believe this.” Those were his only words.
Tom and Steve’s faces also dropped once they looked through the file; it was too much for any of us to take. “Now they want us to question Quso,” Bob said, his voice rising in anger. “They should have given this to us eight months ago.”
FBI special agent Andre Khoury had been stationed elsewhere in the Middle East when the planes hit the twin towers. He was reassigned to join us in Yemen, and after he arrived and saw the file, he wanted to confront the [1 word redacted]. I held Andre back.
“They knew! Why didn’t they tell us?!” Andre said.
“You’re right,” I said, “and I’m just as angry. Believe me. But now is not the time to ask these questions. One day someone will ask the questions and find out, but right now we have to focus on the task at hand.”
In New York, a few hours after the attacks, Steve Bongardt and Kenny Maxwell joined a conference call with people in FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, including Dina Corsi and an FBI supervisor named Rod Middleton. Kenny asked if there were any names of suspected hijackers. Dina replied that they had some, and she began reading out names. The first few names didn’t mean anything, but when Dina read the name “Khalid al-Mihdhar,” Steve interrupted her.
“Khalid al-Mihdhar. Did you say Khalid al-Mihdhar?” he asked, his voice rising. “The same one you told us about? He’s on the list?”
“Steve, we did everything by the book,” Middleton interjected.
“I hope that makes you feel better,” Steve replied. “Tens of thousands are dead.” Kenny hit the mute button on the phone and said to Steve: “Now is not the time for this. There will be a time, but not now.”
A few days later, once regular communication with New York was established, Steve called me in Yemen and repeated the conversation. “I hope they’re fucking happy that they did everything by the book.”
Over the next few days, weeks, and months, information about what else the CIA had known before 9/11 and hadn’t told the FBI kept trickling out. In late 1999 the NSA had told the CIA that they had learned, from monitoring Ahmed al-Hada’s number, that several al-Qaeda members had made plans to travel to Kuala Lumpur in early January 2000. They knew them by the names “Nawaf,” “Khalid,” and “Salem.” Khalid had been identified by the CIA as Khalid al-Mihdhar, Hada’s son-in-law, and they had tracked him arriving in Kuala Lumpur on January 5, 2000.
After we had uncovered Hada’s switchboard during the 1998 investigation into the embassy bombings, we had made an operating agreement with the CIA under which they would monitor the number and share all intelligence with us. They hadn’t done that.
We also learned that en route to Kuala Lumpur, Mihdhar had stopped off in Dubai. [16 words redacted] In his passport he had a multi-entry U.S. visa. The CIA had passed this information on to foreign intelligence agencies but had not told the FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or the State Department.
Because no U.S. agency had been told, Mihdhar’s name had not been put on a terrorist watchlist. As a consequence, he had not been stopped from entering the United States, or even questioned. In March 2000 the CIA had learned that Nawaf al-Hazmi had also flown to Los Angeles International Airport on January 15, but, again they hadn’t told us, the State Department, or INS.
In June 2000 Mihdhar had left California and had gone back to Yemen to visit his family following the birth of a daughter. He had then traveled to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan before traveling again to Mecca in June 2001. He had returned to the United States on July 4, 2001. But because the CIA had not informed us, no one stopped him from entering.
It was on June 13, two days after the June 11 meeting in which [1 word redacted], the CIA supervisor, had refused to answer any questions from Steve and the Cole team about Mihdhar, that he was issued a new visa.
While they were in the United States, both Mihdhar and Hazmi had used their real names to get driver’s licenses and to open bank accounts. Hazmi had even registered his car and was listed in the San Diego phone book. He had used his debit card to buy tickets for American Airlines Flight 77 for himself and his brother, Salem.
It was not until August 23, 2001, that the FBI, Customs, and the State Department were told that Mihdhar was in the United States.
Qamish, who was with his chief of staff, Nabil Sanabani, came straight up to me and gave me a hug. In his eyes there was a look of genuine concern and sadness. “It’s terrible news,” he said, after releasing me. “Is everyone okay?” He was referring to the many Americans he had met as part of the Cole investigation.
I shook my head. His question made me choke up, and it took me a few seconds to pull myself together. “John—” My throat swelled up. “Brother John is missing,” I finished, “as are other colleagues.” Qamish’s face now registered unmistakable grief.
We updated him on the news from New York and Washington. At the time, reports were that more than fifty thousand people had been killed, and we thought that that number included many of our colleagues who were in the vicinity, and with whom we had lost contact. As we spoke, emotion overcame us each one by one. Nabil handed us tissues to wipe our tears.
“How can we help, Brother Ali?” Qamish asked me after we had finished briefing him.
“We need to speak to Quso,” I said. “I believe that he has information on the attacks, and I need to interview him.”
“I’ll get him for you,” Qamish replied immediately.
He picked up the phone and called the PSO office in Aden and was patched through to Ansi, whom we knew well from the Cole investigation.
“Put Quso on the next plane to Sanaa,” Qamish told Ansi. “Ali needs to interview him.”
An argument ensued, and Qamish’s voice rose, his tone turning angry. “I don’t care. The plane can’t leave without him. You listen to me—”
When he had finished, Qamish turned to me and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Quso is brought here.” It wasn’t a surprise to us that Ansi was trying to stop us from interviewing Quso. He had made his sympathies clear during the Cole investigation.
Qamish next called the airport and issued an order to a PSO official based there. “Go find the pilot of the last plane from Aden to Sanaa and have him call me immediately.” A few minutes later Qamish’s phone rang. The PSO official at the airport had the pilot on the line.
“I have a prisoner that I want on your plane,” Qamish told the pilot. “Don’t leave without him. If he’s late, the plane must wait.”
It was clear Qamish thought that Ansi might deliberately bring Quso to the airport late so he would miss the plane. He was right—Ansi did bring Quso late. To Ansi’s surprise, the plane was waiting.
During the late evening of September 12, Bob and I went to a PSO facility to meet Quso. He was brought straight from the airport, and as soon as he saw us waiting for him he started yelling. “What is this? So if anything happens in New York or Washington you blame me?”
“Hold on,” I said. “How did you know we were going to ask you about that?” Quso was silent. My question caught him off-guard. “I was actually just going to ask you about the Cole, but since you bring it up, what do you know?” Quso slumped down in his chair.
We read Quso the Miranda warning; he waived his rights, and then we started questioning him. “So what do you know about what happened?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Okay,” I told him, “but you do know about al-Qaeda, right?”
“Yes, we’ve been through that.”
“Okay, so we’ll return to the Cole.”
I asked Quso a series of questions about his having delivered the money to Khallad in Bangkok. I showed him the three pictures I had been given by the [1 word redacted], one of which was of Khalid al-Mihdhar, taken in Malaysia. Quso didn’t identify him as Mihdhar but said he thought he looked like Khallad.
It took a lot of self-control for us to remain calm while questioning Quso. The $36,000 he had delivered to Khallad from Yemen had in all likelihood been used for the 9/11 attack, probably paying for tickets for two of the hijackers, Hazmi and Mihdhar. We had only just learned from the CIA that they knew that the two had been with Khallad in Bangkok, and from there had flown to Los Angeles. Next we showed Quso pictures of al-Qaeda operatives and asked him to identify those he knew. Some of the analysts in Washington were convinced that Quso was in the photos, though Bob and I, who had spent many hours with him, knew it wasn’t the case. Nonetheless, the analysts requested that we get Quso to identify himself. After going over the photos, we dwelled on the individual they thought was Quso. He noticed and told us, “I know what you’re thinking. It’s not me. It looks like me, but it’s not me.” Included were pictures of the men we suspected of being the hijackers, although we didn’t tell him the significance of those photos. Quso identified numerous al-Qaeda members but didn’t recognize any of the suspected hijackers’ photos except one. “That’s Marwan al-Shehhi,” he said. Shehhi had been on United Airlines Flight 175. We suspected that Shehhi was a hijacker, but at this stage we had no proof. Quso helped provide proof by identifying him as an al-Qaeda member.
“Okay,” I said nonchalantly, “how do you know him?”
“I once stayed at the same guesthouse as him in Afghanistan.”
“And?”
“It was during Ramadan, and Shehhi had apparently had some kind of stomach operation to help him lose weight, so really it was dangerous for him to fast, but he decided to fast anyway. As a result he got very sick, and the emir of the guesthouse had to look after him.”
“Anything else happen with him?”
“I remember he had arrived in Afghanistan with a friend whose alias was Abas, but he was killed during a training exercise. Apparently he didn’t realize the gun he was using had real bullets in it, and he shot himself.” Quso laughed to himself.
“And in the guesthouse where you met Shehhi,” I asked, “who was the emir?” Although I of course knew the answer, I wanted him to say the name for the benefit of the PSO officials present.
“Abu Jandal,” he replied.
I asked Quso a couple more questions about other people, because I didn’t want him to know the significance of what he had just told me, and then I suggested to the Yemenis that we all take a break.
From our anonymous source in Afghanistan we knew Abu Jandal’s importance to bin Laden. We also knew that the Yemenis had him in custody. They had refused to give us access to him in the Cole investigation because they had said we had no evidence that he had anything to do with the attack on the destroyer. But now we had Quso linking him to one of the 9/11 hijackers.
“We need to talk to Abu Jandal,” I told one of the Yemeni intelligence officers in the room. “Quickly!”
While we waited for Abu Jandal, we continued questioning Quso and in total spent about four days talking to him, going through all his interactions with other al-Qaeda members. We questioned him during the night and spent the days preparing for the next interview. At one point I collapsed from exhaustion and was taken to the emergency room, but as soon as I was revived I checked myself out and returned to work.
We took breaks from the interrogation to write up the information we had gained and file it with Washington. When we informed headquarters that we had shown Quso the three pictures and that he had misidentified the picture of Mihdhar as being Khallad, they told us that the CIA had just come up with a [1 word redacted] picture.
“What [1 word redacted] picture?” I asked in frustration. “Look, how many pictures are there?”
“As far as the CIA told us, that’s it. There are only [1 word redacted] pictures, but we are still pushing. We’ll let you know.”
Headquarters sent us the [1 word redacted] picture—it was of Khallad, talking in a phone booth. The Malaysian [2 words redacted] had listed, in its [1 word redacted], the phone number assigned to the booth. It was the number that we had explicitly asked the CIA if they had recognized, to which they had replied no. Quso positively identified the man in the [1 word redacted] photo as Khallad.
This [1 word redacted] picture had been in the CIA’s possession when Steve Bongardt and the Cole team had been shown the [1 word redacted] three pictures on June 11, 2001. If it had been shown to the Cole team, Steve and the other agents at the meeting would have identified the man in the picture as Khallad. We knew exactly what Khallad looked like from the Cole investigation. And if we had learned that the CIA had had a picture of Khallad in June 2001, and had been monitoring him, we would have gone straight to headquarters saying that the CIA had lied about not knowing about Khallad, and we would have demanded that they hand over the information.
If that had happened, at a minimum, Khalid al-Mihdhar would not have been allowed to just walk into the United States on July 4, 2001, and Nawaf al-Hazmi, Atta’s deputy, would have been arrested. At a minimum.
What really upset Bob and me now was that it was only Quso’s misidentification of Mihdhar as possibly Khallad that had caused the CIA to share the [1 word redacted] photo. Even now, after 9/11, they weren’t properly sharing information with us. We wondered if there were other photographs from the Malaysia meeting that were still being kept from us.
August 2003. “Watch it, Ali, they seem to want your head,” Kevin Cruise said, walking up to my desk. He’d just finished meeting investigators from the 9/11 Commission.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“They’re asking a lot of questions about you. It seems our friends at Langley have been talking about you. Just be careful when you see them tomorrow.” It was clear that the CIA officials behind the withholding of information pre-9/11 were nervous about what I would say and were trying to discredit me. It was unfortunate that this was how they were spending their time: rather than addressing mistakes and working out how to ensure that errors weren’t repeated, they wanted to cover it up and fight the FBI instead.
“Thanks, Kevin, will do.”
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States was set up in late 2002 by an act of Congress, with the mandate “to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001, attacks.” When the investigators arrived in New York, they spoke first to senior FBI officials like Kevin Cruise, who was one of two supervisors overseeing the 9/11 investigations. The next day they spoke to field agents.
The first agent they called was me. After introducing themselves and asking some basic background questions, one of the investigators asked me: “So, Agent Soufan, why does the CIA hate you?” I was taken aback by the question, and paused as I debated how to answer it.
“You must be talking to the wrong crowd down there. Hate is a big term,” I replied. “But to answer your question, I think you’d have to ask them.” The commission team started laughing.
“Let’s move on and focus on al-Qaeda,” said one of the investigators, Douglas J. MacEachin, a thirty-year CIA veteran. “Here’s my question: if you want to look at al-Qaeda and understand what happened, where would you start?”
“Nineteen seventy-nine is where I’d start,” I answered.
Doug’s face lit up. “I must tell you,” he said, “I’m very pleased you said that. Everyone else we’ve spoken to answers by starting just before 9/11, or with the East African embassy bombings or the USS Cole. But in my opinion, you are right. Tell me, why 1979?”
I explained to him what I had told John years earlier, explaining why 1979—with events like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution—was an important year.
“That’s the best explanation we’ve heard, thank you,” one of the staffers said. “Why don’t you now take us through what has happened since 1979 and the cases you’ve been involved in investigating.”
I talked them through a series of cases, including the East African embassy bombings, Operation Challenge, the thwarted millennium attacks in Jordan, and the USS Cole bombing. During this discussion, I sensed that the relationship between us was changing. While they had clearly been briefed negatively about me by some in the CIA, they saw I knew my material, and they were reevaluating me in their minds.
I finished off by mentioning that, as part of the Cole investigation, we had asked the CIA about Khallad and other al-Qaeda operatives being in Malaysia, and that they had denied any knowledge of it. I also mentioned that the CIA had known in January that hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, and that they had known in March that he was in the United States—but that they hadn’t shared this information with the FBI until August 2001.
“The CIA told us,” one investigator interjected, “that as they told the congressional Joint Inquiry, the FBI was told about Khallad being in Malaysia, and the FBI was told about Khalid al-Midhar and Hazmi being here.” (The Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, or JIICATAS911, was conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence between February 2002 and December 2002, and it was widely seen as a failure. This is why the nonpartisan 9/11 Commission was set up.)
“That’s not true,” I replied, “and you can look through all the files we have to see that that information was never passed along. As you know, if information was passed along, it would be in these files. The government works electronically, and there’s a record of everything. In the USS Cole files you’ll see all the requests we made, and their responses saying they didn’t have any information.”
“We want to see all the USS Cole files.”
“Sure. We have lots of files. It could take days.”
“That’s not a problem. We have lots of people to go through them.”
I called in one of my FBI colleagues and asked that all the files for the USS Cole be brought to the investigators. We had files on every individual involved, every witness we had questioned, and every scene we had investigated. Included among the material were thick files with information we had sent to the CIA. A separate file contained information the CIA had passed to us, and that was very thin.
As the files were being brought in, we took a break and I went to speak to Pat D’Amuro. He was with Joe Valiquette, the FBI’s spokesman. “How’s it going, Ali?” Pat asked.
“The challenge I’m facing is that they are claiming the CIA gave us the information on Mihdhar and Khallad being in Malaysia.”
“But they didn’t,” Pat replied.
“Exactly, boss, and in the USS Cole files we’ve got all the documents proving that. What I want to know is whether it’s okay with the bureau that I point out to the investigators exactly where to look. Otherwise they’re just searching through hundreds of files.”
“Absolutely, give them everything they want and need,” Pat replied.
This was a marked change from how the bureau approached the Joint Inquiry, where agents were told that the FBI leadership was just going to accept the “blame” for 9/11 in order not to upset anyone in the CIA and rock the boat. This decision outraged the agents who were on the front lines against al-Qaeda and who knew that the truth was very different. As I walked back into the room the commission investigators were using, I felt liberated.
At one point during my discussions with the 9/11 Commission investigators, I was called into the office of my assistant special agent in charge, Amy Jo Lyons. “Ali, we’ve been getting complaints from the CIA about things you’re saying to the commission,” she said. It seemed that the investigators were going back and asking the CIA new questions based on the information I had given them. And the CIA had complained to FBI headquarters.
“That’s okay with me,” I replied to Amy, “but if people in headquarters are unhappy with me telling the commission what really happened, they can tell me in writing not to cooperate, and I won’t cooperate.”
“No, no,” Amy said, “I just want to know what’s happening here.”
“It’s simple,” I told her. “The commission started asking questions about the Cole and 9/11, and I quickly realized they had been told a series of lies. With Pat’s approval I went through actual documents with them and showed them what really happened.”
“If that’s the case,” Amy replied, “you didn’t do anything wrong. You did exactly what needed to be done.”
When the 9/11 Commission published their findings, everything I said was confirmed by their investigation. On page 355 of the report, they list “Operational Opportunities.” Included in that summary list are:
1. January 2000: the CIA does not watchlist Khalid al-Mihdhar or notify the FBI when it learned Mihdhar possessed a valid U.S. visa.
2. January 2000: the CIA does not develop a transnational plan for tracking Mihdhar and his associates so that they could be followed to Bangkok and onward, including the United States.
3. March 2000: the CIA does not watchlist Nawaf al-Hazmi or notify the FBI when it learned that he possessed a U.S. visa and had flown to Los Angeles on January 15, 2000.
4. January 2001: the CIA does not inform the FBI that a source had identified Khallad, or Tawfiq bin Attash, a major figure in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, as having attended the meeting in Kuala Lumpur with Khalid al-Mihdhar.
5. May 2001: a CIA official does not notify the FBI about Mihdhar’s U.S. visa, Hazmi’s U.S. travel, or Khallad’s having attended the Kuala Lumpur meeting (identified when he reviewed all the relevant traffic because of the high level of threats).
6. June 2001: FBI and CIA officials do not ensure that all relevant information regarding the Kuala Lumpur meeting was shared with the Cole investigators at the June 11 meeting.
The CIA’s own inspector general’s report into 9/11 came to the same conclusions regarding CIA shortcomings and its failure to share intelligence. The report states: “Earlier watchlisting of Mihdhar could have prevented his reentry into the United States in July 2001. Informing the FBI and good operational follow-through by CIA and FBI might have resulted in surveillance of both al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. Surveillance, in turn, would have the potential to yield information on flight training, financing, and links to others who were complicit in the 9/11 attacks.” The report goes on to say: “That so many individuals failed to act in this case reflects a systematic breakdown.” The inspector general recommended that an “accountability board review the performance of the CTC chiefs.” (This never happened.)
My discussions with the 9/11 Commission investigators resumed, and we started discussing the “source” in Afghanistan.
“He’s an FBI source developed in Afghanistan before 9/11. We agreed to share him with the CIA. Our agreement with them on the source was that anything gained from the source—he was a criminal investigation source—had to be shared with us.”
“And what happened?”
“After 9/11 we learned that the CIA went behind our backs and showed the pictures of the Malaysia summit meeting—the pictures they wouldn’t share with us—to the source. They didn’t tell us that they had shown him the pictures, nor did they share with us what he told them about the pictures. He didn’t know that the CIA wasn’t sharing information with the FBI; nor was he told why these pictures were important. When the source was shown the pictures from Malaysia in January 2001, he told them he didn’t recognize who Mihdhar was, but he was 90 percent certain that the other person was Khallad.
“We were not told this. This shows that the CIA knew the significance of Malaysia, Khallad, and Mihdhar but actively went out of their way to withhold the information from us. It’s not a case of just not passing on information. This is information the FBI representative working with the source should have been told about. It was a legal requirement. Instead we were deliberately kept out of the loop.”
“We were told by the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center that they shared all their information with the FBI from the source and that nothing was hidden,” a commission member responded.
I paused and, thinking out loud, asked, “Did you check all the regular cables?”
“Yes.”
“Did you check operational traffic?”
“That must be it,” Doug said, smiling broadly. At first only he understood the point I was making, and he received puzzled looks from other staffers. But then he explained it to them.
Operational traffic refers to cables sent during an operation. The officer will list procedures, leaving a record in case something goes wrong or something needs to be referred to. Because these cables are strictly procedural and not related to intelligence, they would not be sent to the FBI. If someone wanted to hide something from the FBI, that’s where he would put it. Because Doug had worked for the CIA, he knew what operational cables were, while other members of the team might not have.
After investigating the episode, the 9/11 Commission found that this intelligence was indeed hidden in operational traffic.
When an FBI colleague from New York, Frank Pellegrino, briefed the commission after me, a staffer commented about investigators being “unable to connect the dots.”
“What dots?” Frank angrily replied. “There are no dots to connect! It was all there, written in front of them.”
Later I was asked by the 9/11 Commission to travel to Washington with Dan Coleman, Debbie Doran, and a few senior FBI officials to deliver a briefing about al-Qaeda to the full commission. The CIA was represented by some analysts, and the meeting was chaired by the executive director of the commission, Philip Zelikow.
Doug MacEachin, the former CIA official who had become a supporter of mine after our meeting in New York, told me beforehand to give the same briefing I had given them, which I did. The CIA analysts then gave a presentation about the structure of al-Qaeda.
“Is that accurate?” a commission team member asked me.
“No, unfortunately, there is a series of errors in what they think is the structure of al-Qaeda.”
“For example?”
“Well, they said that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed runs al-Qaeda’s media committee. This is under the control of Ayman Zawahiri. KSM runs the media office, a cover for their operational planning unit.”
“Can you support your claim?”
“Yes. We found some documents in Afghanistan explaining the structure.”
“What else?”
“Then there’s what they said about Khallad,” I replied. “They said Khallad has never been to the United States. Debbie can tell you that’s false.”
“Yes,” Debbie interjected, “we found that Salah bin Saeed bin Yousef—this is the alias Khallad traveled under—was listed as having traveled to LAX during the millennium.”
“We have Khallad in our custody,” a CIA analyst said, [11 words redacted]
“You may be right, but if he wasn’t there, why is his alias on the flight manifest?”
These are a few of the points we raised, among many others. Some are classified; others I simply cannot recall after all these years. As we walked out of the room at the conclusion of the meeting, one commission staffer came up to us and said: “I have a feeling that between the three of you, you forget more things than they will ever know.”
Years later, on April 23, 2009, Philip Zelikow commented, in a piece on foreignpolicy.com: “I met and interviewed Soufan in the course of my work at the 9/11 Commission, while he was still doing important work at the FBI.… My fellow staffers and I considered Soufan to be credible. Indeed, Soufan is fluent in Arabic, and he seemed to us to be one of the more impressive intelligence agents—from any agency—that we encountered in our work.”
Until Debbie, Dan, myself, and other agents briefed the commission, senior FBI managers in Washington didn’t understand the situation. Part of the problem was that the FBI leadership had changed in August 2001. There was a new director, Robert Mueller, with a new senior team, and very few of them had been involved with the significant terrorist cases of the preceding years.
The leadership of the FBI didn’t know that we had been requesting information and that the CIA hadn’t shared it; and they just wanted to move on and start fresh. President George W. Bush had told the FBI and the CIA that he wanted everyone to get along. Again, the implication was that the FBI should just take the criticism and blame for 9/11.
But those of us who knew the truth stated exactly what had happened when we were asked about events under oath before the 9/11 Commission. And when senior FBI officials heard about our performance before the commission, they were surprised. At one point I was asked to brief John Pistole, one of Director Mueller’s chief deputies, prior to his testifying publicly before the 9/11 Commission, but at the last minute the briefing was canceled, as the leadership didn’t want to cause problems for the CIA.
Later, when John Miller, the former ABC journalist who had interviewed bin Laden in 1998, was appointed assistant director of the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs, he understood the need to correct the narrative. When Lawrence Wright asked for access to people, John told the director: “We need to do this for history. It isn’t about CIA or FBI. We need to tell the American people the truth about an important era.” The director agreed, and the bureau gave Larry access. He then wrote the best-seller The Looming Tower, and he later profiled me in the New Yorker. Between his book and the 9/11 Commission, the truth began to come out.
Those in the CIA who were responsible for not passing on information did their best to ensure that the truth didn’t come out. With approval from the bureau, around the same time we spoke to Wright, Joe Valiquette arranged for Dan Coleman and me to brief a senior journalist from one of the major newspapers. After he spoke to us in New York, he went to the CIA with a bunch of questions.
“What you were told by the FBI is completely false,” a CIA official told him. The journalist asked to see evidence, whereupon the CIA official pointed to a stack of documents, describing the files as consisting of “information disproving everything the FBI said, but it’s all classified, so I can’t show it to you.” The journalist decided to tone down the story. Wright was told the same thing, and veiled threats were made (with reference to his daughter). But he’s a courageous reporter who could read through bluffs, and he had done enough research to be confident in what the truth was, and he wouldn’t be pressured by threats. He wrote his book, and won the Pulitzer Prize for it.
After The 9/11 Commission Report was published and everything I had told the journalist was verified, the journalist contacted Joe Valiquette, told him what the CIA had said, and apologized for not running with the truth. “I was duped. I trusted them,” the journalist told Joe.
What really upset a few people on the seventh floor of Langley—the executive floor—was that the 9/11 Commission flatly contradicted the CIA’s claims about sharing intelligence. The commission showed the American people that if information had been shared, 9/11 might have been prevented.
The most damning passage in The 9/11 Commission Report is found on page 267: “DCI Tenet and Cofer Black testified before Congress’s Joint Inquiry into 9/11 that the FBI had access to this identification [of Khallad in Kuala Lumpur] from the beginning. But drawing on an extensive record, including documents that were not available to the CIA personnel who drafted that testimony, we conclude this was not the case.”
In a footnote to that line, one of the sources is “Al. S.” Those in the CIA who had not shared the intelligence knew that this referred to “Ali Soufan,” and they hated me for it.
September 17, 2001. It was dark outside as Bob and I walked into the interrogation room at PSO headquarters in Sanaa. We had agreed with the Yemenis that it was safest to conduct our interrogations at night. Under cover of darkness there was less of a chance that we would be spotted traveling to and from the prison.
The security threat was greater than ever before, as the new suspect we were about to interrogate, Nasser Ahmad Nasser al-Bahri—widely known as Abu Jandal—was Osama bin Laden’s former personal bodyguard. Al-Qaeda and its supporters certainly didn’t want him talking to us. He was a potential treasure trove of information on the enemy that had just six days earlier murdered so many Americans. The final tally was not yet known, as bodies were still being recovered, but among the dead were friends like my former boss John O’Neill. At the very least, Abu Jandal knew Marwan al-Shehhi, one of the suspected hijackers of United Airlines Flight 175.
Getting information on the hijackers and al-Qaeda in general was a top priority for the U.S. government. The U.S. military was preparing to invade Afghanistan to go after al-Qaeda, and the government was trying to build an international coalition to support its efforts. All U.S. intelligence, military, and law enforcement personnel were under pressure to learn as much as they could about the enemy’s capabilities, plans, locations, and numbers to help the military prepare for war. We were also asked to find evidence to show conclusively that al-Qaeda was behind the attack.
Several world leaders whom the United States wanted to include in its coalition, including Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Pakistan’s General Musharraf, were not convinced that al-Qaeda was responsible. Musharraf was particularly important given Pakistan’s proximity to Afghanistan. Abu Jandal was the best lead the United States had so far; we hoped to obtain information from him that might remove these leaders’ doubts and give our military information on the enemy we were about to attack.
We knew of Bahri—born in Saudi Arabia and of Yemeni descent—by his fearsome reputation. In a famous picture of bin Laden walking with his bodyguards, all of the bodyguards have their faces covered to protect their identities except Abu Jandal, who wanted to show he had no fear. Our anonymous source had spoken of Abu Jandal as someone fiercely dedicated to, and trusted by, bin Laden, and someone whom other al-Qaeda members both feared and respected.
He had been arrested by the Yemenis at Sanaa International Airport in February 2001 as he was trying to leave the country to return to Afghanistan. Initially the Yemenis wouldn’t let us question him; they were only letting us interrogate those we could prove were connected to the Cole attack. Although Abu Jandal was a known al-Qaeda member, nothing linked him to the Cole bombing. The Yemenis were holding him because they knew his connection to bin Laden and were suspicious as to why he had been traveling into and out of the country. It was only because Quso had provisionally linked Abu Jandal to 9/11 that we now had access to him.
Bob and I settled into chairs on one side of the table and waited for Abu Jandal to be brought in. We were glad that our usual Yemeni interrogation partners, Colonel Yassir and Major Mahmoud, were with us. We had been working well with them in the Cole investigation. They were talented law enforcement operatives, and we knew that they shared our commitment to justice.
About ten minutes later guards knocked on the door. The door opened and Abu Jandal walked in, very much at ease. He had a thick black beard, closely cropped black hair, balding on top, and piercing brown eyes—which at that moment were glaring at us, as if he wanted to know how we dared to interrogate him.
He wasn’t wearing shackles, handcuffs, or even a prison uniform. Instead he wore a blue thawb and slippers. He didn’t act or dress like a prisoner. He looked healthy and well-rested, and it was clear that he had been treated well during his several months in prison.
Abu Jandal held his head high, and his body language displayed confidence and control. Our Yemeni partners had asked that their names not be said out loud—they didn’t want Abu Jandal to know who they were. They were apparently afraid of him.
When he had taken his seat across the table from Bob and me, with Yassir and Mahmoud against the wall, we began the interrogation. “Hello, Nasser,” I said in Arabic, using his first name to emphasize my familiarity with him. “My name is Ali Soufan, and I’m with the FBI.” I took out my FBI credentials and placed them in front of him on the table.
I wanted to take him out of his comfort zone: he was used to being feared and having deferential Yemeni guards. I wanted him to know that things were different now: he was with Americans and we weren’t scared. “And this is my colleague Bob McFadden, from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” I continued, pointing to Bob, who nodded, “and we’d like to ask you some questions. But first I want to advise you of your rights, which I will now read to you.”
Before I could continue, in one quick movement Abu Jandal stood up, swung his chair so that it faced away from us, and sat back down. Now he had his back to us. He turned his head to the side toward Yassir and Mahmoud, and told them, his brown eyes still glaring: “I will not talk directly to them. If there are any questions, you ask me, not these Americans. They can’t talk to me. You know the rules.” For the next few minutes he lectured them about how they should not allow Americans to question him.
Abu Jandal apparently had been told by sympathetic PSO officials that the Yemenis were meant to be intermediaries between us and any Yemenis we questioned. It was what we had agreed to during the Cole investigation. But the practice had been dropped: to Yassir and Mahmoud and most of the other Yemenis we worked with, it was seen as a waste of time. Why have them repeat, in Arabic, what I had just asked in Arabic? It made little sense and even made them look foolish, and so they had begun to let us speak directly in Arabic to the suspects.
When Abu Jandal finished his rant, I turned to Mahmoud and said dismissively in Arabic, “Go ahead, repeat what I said. If Nasser wants to waste his own time by hearing the same thing twice, that’s fine with me.” I wanted to show Abu Jandal that I wasn’t intimidated; nor did it matter to me if Mahmoud or Yassir had to repeat things. If he was trying to score any psychological points, he had failed. Abu Jandal was silent.
“His name is Ali Soufan, and he’s with the FBI. He wants to ask you some questions, but first he will read you your rights,” Mahmoud said.
“Okay,” Abu Jandal replied, looking at Mahmoud.
“Right,” I said. “Nasser al-Bahri, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…” I continued reading from the form in Arabic. After I had finished, I said: “Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?” Silence from Abu Jandal. I nodded to Mahmoud.
“Nasser al-Bahri, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say . . . ,” Mahmoud began, and he repeated verbatim in Arabic what I had just said in Arabic.
“I don’t need a lawyer, I can answer any question. I’m not afraid. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ll answer your questions,” Abu Jandal replied, full of confidence.
“Will you sign a declaration saying you understand yours rights?” I asked.
Abu Jandal was silent. He still had his back to Bob and me and he stared at Mahmoud. Again Mahmoud repeated what I had said: “Will you sign a declaration saying that you understand your rights?”
“I won’t sign, but I verbally tell you it’s okay,” Abu Jandal replied.
“Okay,” I said. “So, Abu Jandal, how are you today?”
Silence. I nodded to Mahmoud. “How are you today?” Mahmoud repeated.
“Good,” Abu Jandal replied to him.
“Good,” Mahmoud told me. I noticed Abu Jandal smirking to himself; the skit amused him. “So you are Abu Jandal, bin Laden’s personal bodyguard?” I asked.
Silence. Mahmoud repeated the question.
“Yes,” he said, “I can’t deny that, because there is only one Abu Jandal, and I am Abu Jandal.” He couldn’t help grinning as he said this. Abu Jandal was clearly proud of his reputation and status in al-Qaeda.
“And you were bin Laden’s personal bodyguard?” I asked. Mahmoud repeated my question.
“Yes,” Abu Jandal replied, “I was, but I left al-Qaeda and am now being held for no reason.”
“How did you join al-Qaeda?” I asked. Mahmoud repeated the question.
“I first went to Bosnia to protect Muslims from Serb brutality, then I went to Afghanistan, where I met bin Laden,” he told Mahmoud, who repeated it to me. We went through a series of basic questions—covering his identity and his role in al-Qaeda—and he answered all our questions, through Mahmoud and Yassir.
While it appeared that Abu Jandal was cooperating, he was in fact practicing a classic counterinterrogation technique. He knew that we were fully aware of who he was, his position in al-Qaeda, and other basic information about him. He knew there was no point denying it, so he readily admitted it in order to appear to be cooperating. But in reality he wasn’t giving us any new information, only basic stuff that he assumed we knew. This made it difficult for us to accuse him of not cooperating.
To get Abu Jandal to cooperate properly and gain new intelligence, we first had to get him to talk directly to us, rather than through the Yemenis. A key to a successful interrogation is to establish rapport with the detainee—a nearly impossible task if he won’t even talk to you. Bob and I began to ask Abu Jandal a series of seemingly irrelevant questions. While they wouldn’t necessarily give us any actual intelligence, they would, importantly, encourage him to open up and talk.
“Why would someone join al-Qaeda?” I asked. Mahmoud repeated the question. It was an open-ended question designed to give Abu Jandal a chance to lecture. Abu Jandal responded by talking about the Islamic tradition of fighting injustice and tyranny, and linked that to the American “occupation” of Muslims lands and Israel’s actions against the Palestinians. I guessed he had spoken about the subject countless times, probably to motivate new al-Qaeda recruits.
We followed up with a series of similar soft questions, ones that Abu Jandal wouldn’t see as problematic to address—ones he would want to respond to. At the same time, the questions made him more emotional, as these were matters close to his heart, and as a result he lost some of his control and deliberation. I asked him about the “injustices” he referred to, and about what he had seen in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
As he got increasingly involved in replying—thinking perhaps that he was convincing me, given the earnestness and respectful tone of my questioning—at times he forgot to wait for Mahmoud to repeat the question and responded directly to me.
We broke in the early hours of the morning, happy to have succeded in getting Abu Jandal to speak and look directly at us. Our first objective had been achieved.
Bob and I returned to the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa (then our home and office) and started reviewing our conversation with Abu Jandal and preparing for the next evening’s interview. After a few hours we took a break and went to a nearby local supermarket for some food. As we passed the bakery section, Bob pointed to some sugarless cookies and said to me, with a twinkle in his eye: “Let’s get them for him. We’ll give him the message that Americans are good. Habibi, we are good.” “Habibi” is an Arabic word that literally means “my beloved” but is used as a term of friendship and endearment. Bob was being sarcastic.
During the interrogation we had put some cookies on the table for Abu Jandal, but he hadn’t touched them. We’d asked Yassir why, and he had told us it was because Abu Jandal was diabetic. While I asked more of the questions, Bob focused on manipulating the atmosphere of the interview. Even while taking a break from preparation, he was thinking about how to establish rapport with Abu Jandal.
The next evening, we returned to PSO headquarters and went back into the interrogation room with Mahmoud and Yassir. As Abu Jandal was escorted into the room by his guards, before he had a chance to sit down I greeted him: “As-Salamu Alaykum.”
He shook his head and then slowly replied, “Wa Alaykum as-Salam.” In Islamic culture, if someone says “peace be upon you,” you need to respond in kind. Knowing the culture, we used it to our advantage and got him to start off that evening as he had finished the previous one: speaking directly to us.
I then read Abu Jandal the Miranda warning (we did this every day): “You have the right…” Abu Jandal was silent, and he turned his head and glared at Mahmoud, clearly trying to reestablish the boundaries he had had the previous night before he had engaged with us. I nodded to Mahmoud, who repeated the Miranda warning. Abu Jandal again verbally waived his rights, saying he had nothing to hide.
“How are you today?” I asked him. He was silent and looked at Mahmoud.
I nodded to Mahmoud and he repeated my question.
“Good,” Abu Jandal replied.
“Good,” Mahmoud told me.
“We know you didn’t eat the cookies we put out for you yesterday because you have a sugar problem. So today we brought you some sugarless cookies that you can eat.”
Abu Jandal’s face registered surprise. He had been taught to expect cruelty from Americans, not kindness. He seemed at a loss for how to respond.
“Shukran,” he said slowly, looking at me and again shaking his head. Under Islamic traditions, you need to thank someone for a kindness, and Abu Jandal was well versed in Islamic etiquette. Now he looked at me, rather than Mahmoud, waiting for the next question.
We started off by asking him light personal questions, ones he’d have no problem answering. The aim was to warm him up. Every detainee is different. Abu Jandal was by nature talkative. He liked to lecture and liked being listened to. He was intelligent and well read, unlike many other al-Qaeda terrorists I had interrogated, so we used leverage on his personality and engaged him intellectually.
“So you left al-Qaeda in 2000?” I asked, accepting his claim from the previous evening that when he returned to Yemen in 2000 it was because he was leaving al-Qaeda.
“Yes,” he replied directly to me. “Although the fact that I’m here talking to you shows that you can’t really leave,” he said in a sarcastic tone.
“In fact,” he continued, “Abu Mohammed al-Masri told me, ‘If you think by leaving Afghanistan they [the Americans] will leave you alone, you are wrong. This is a war. Either we will win or die. There is no place for turning back.’” He had used an alias for Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, the al-Qaeda shura council member and mastermind of the East African embassy bombings. He paused, as if for effect, and then continued with a shrug and a half-smile, “And he’s right, here I am with you, even though I left.”
“Why did you leave al-Qaeda?” I asked, ignoring Abu Jandal’s comment and sticking to our plan of having him talk about comfortable topics.
“For many reasons,” he replied. “First of all, because of my wife and children…” He explained that his son Habib had a bone condition and that they couldn’t get adequate treatment in Afghanistan. Another reason for leaving, he told us, was because his wife was unhappy in Afghanistan.
“Why was she unhappy?” I asked.
“Because Bin Laden had given me money to bring to someone in Yemen, which turned out to be for a new bride for bin Laden himself. She was very young, and the other wives resented me for bringing her, and in turn were mean to my wife.” Abu Jandal told us that he thought he was being sent with the funds for what he termed a “martyrdom operation” and was upset to learn that he was simply being used as a courier for wedding arrangements.
“So it was only for those personal reasons that you left al-Qaeda?” I asked. “There were no ideological reasons?” If there were ideological differences, it would be a good basis upon which to tease information out of Abu Jandal, Bob and I had calculated.
“No, there were,” he replied. “I also didn’t agree with some things bin Laden did.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like when he pledged bayat to Mullah Omar.”
“Why did you object to that?” I asked. Our conversation was a steady back-and-forth at this point.
“It meant that all al-Qaeda members who had pledged bayat to bin Laden were obligated to follow Mullah Omar. To me that’s not what al-Qaeda is meant to be, and not what I signed up for. I didn’t sign up to join the Taliban.”
“What is al-Qaeda meant to be?” I asked. Abu Jandal gave his views, which were based on bin Laden’s 1996 declaration of war and liberating the holy lands and the Arabian Peninsula from the presence of crusaders and Jews. From this topic, Bob and I steered the conversation toward his religious justifications for joining al-Qaeda. I gently challenged those religious justifications, citing passages from the Quran that appeared not to square with his view. I wanted to test Abu Jandal’s knowledge and see how firmly committed he was to his religious views, and to impress on him that I, too, was well versed in Islamic theology.
Abu Jandal countered by citing Islamic scholars who supported his position, and I replied by citing scholars who disagreed with his scholars. We had a spirited yet friendly debate, quoting authorities and passages from the Quran between us. Abu Jandal seemed to be enjoying himself, and enjoying the challenge. He voiced his wonder at one point, saying: “It’s fascinating to me how you can be a Muslim, know so much about Islam, and yet have such a radically different view from mine about America, al-Qaeda, and jihad.”
“I hope this leads you to rethink some of your stands,” I told him with a smile.
Our conversation veered into revolutions, which we had learned, the night before, was a favorite topic of Abu Jandal’s. After telling us about the Islamic tradition of revolutions for the sake of justice, he told us, “Revolutions don’t only happen in the Islamic world because of injustice. Non-Muslims also have revolutions.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“It’s true. In fact a revolution in Scotland started because the British general ruling the country insisted on sleeping with every woman before she got married, and one man refused. As a punishment they killed his wife, and in response he declared war on the British and…”
“Hold on,” I said, interrupting him, “are you talking about a movie? It’s Braveheart, right?” I recognized his description of the Mel Gibson movie.
“Yes, yes,” he said excitedly, grinning broadly. When he smiles, Abu Jandal’s face lights up, and the gaps in his front teeth become visible. “I saw it with my wife. I loved that film.” We agreed that it was a great movie, and for a few minutes we discussed it and compared our favorite scenes.
“You know, Abu Jandal,” I told him, ending the Braveheart conversation, “I know about the revolutionary tradition in Islam, and you’re clearly very well read in it. But did you know that America also has a revolutionary past?” He shook his head and leaned in. He was curious. He liked learning new things, especially on his favorite topics.
“It’s true,” I continued. “We Americans understand revolutions. We had our own revolution. America used to be ruled by the British. But in 1776 Americans had enough of British cruelty and taxes, and under George Washington, who was then a general but later became the first American president, we revolted against the British and defeated them. Only then did America become a country.” Abu Jandal was fascinated and asked me questions about the American Revolution.
He was now speaking directly to us, and Bob and I moved to the second stage of the interrogation: asking him more detailed questions about himself and al-Qaeda. While he continued answering our questions directly, he was still practicing the classic counterinterrogation technique of admitting to what he knew we knew and to things that were of no value, so as to appear cooperative.
We needed to snap him out of this counterinterrogation technique. “We’re going to do something different now.” I reached into my briefcase and took out one of our al-Qaeda photo-books, placing it on the table and sliding it toward him. “This is filled with people you know,” I said. “I’d like you to confirm who you know.”
“Sure,” Abu Jandal said. “I’ll take a look.” He picked up the book and began looking through it.
While he appeared to earnestly study each photo—his eyebrows furrowed and his forehead wrinkled, a few seconds allotted to each—he kept shaking his head and said he knew almost none of the people. There were about sixty photos. By the end, he had only identified Osama bin Laden, Abu Hafs al-Masri, Ayman Zawahiri, and few other known operatives. Those were people he couldn’t deny knowing, given his admission that he had been Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard. Abu Hafs was, at the time of Abu Jandal’s service, bin Laden’s anointed successor.
“That’s all you recognize?” I asked, deliberately adding surprise to my voice.
“Yes, I don’t recognize anyone else, sorry,” he responded.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Please look again, my friend. Do you think I ask without knowing that you know many of these people? I’m confident you know more people. Look again.”
“Okay, I’ll look again,” he said, again trying to show that he was cooperating, and maintaining the friendly relationship we had built.
He looked slowly through the book, spending a few more seconds than before on each photo. “Sorry, there’s no one else I know.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, eyebrows raised.
“Yes.”
“Well, for friendship’s sake, would you look one more time?”
“Okay, for you I will,” he said with a smile.
He looked at picture after picture, shaking his head after examining each one. As he got about halfway through, I laughed and turned to Bob. “See?”
“What?” Abu Jandal asked somewhat nervously, trying to work out what was going on. He didn’t like being on the outside of a joke.
“I knew you wouldn’t be straight with us,” I told him. “I told Bob you wouldn’t admit to knowing people.”
“What do you mean?” Abu Jandal asked, his voice sounding a bit less confident than usual.
“Come on,” I said, “take this picture.” I pointed to a photo on the page he had been looking at. “Are you claiming you don’t know al-Sharqi?” Sharqi was an al-Qaeda alias for Shehhi, the hijacker who Quso had told us had stayed in Abu Jandal’s guesthouse.
Abu Jandal was silent, with a poker face. “Do you think I don’t know about your relationship with him?” I continued. “Remember Ramadan 1999, when he was sick in your guesthouse? And as his emir you cared for him and gave him soup and nursed him back to health?” Abu Jandal began to blush. “So do you really not know him?” I asked.
“Yes, I do know him,” he admitted sheepishly. After a pause, as if calculating the situation, he added, “Sorry.” We didn’t mention anything about Shehhi being one of the 9/11 hijackers; and Shehhi’s name had not yet been released to the press as a suspected hijacker.
“When I ask you a question, I most probably know the answer,” I told him. “I am just testing you to see if you are cooperating and being honest, as you claim you are. Now, if you don’t want to cooperate, just say so, but please don’t lie to me and waste my time by pretending that you don’t know these people.” Abu Jandal looked down, embarrassed. He had been caught lying, undermining not only his claims of cooperating but, more importantly in his book, of being a religious person—in Islam, as in other religions, lying is a sin. “Look,” I continued, “I thought you were an honest guy. Feeding someone soup is very personal. How do you think I know about it? I know about your relationships with many in this book. I didn’t fly all the way from America to interview you knowing nothing. You don’t know how many of your friends I have in my custody, or who worked for me, and how many have spoken about you. So please let’s not play games, and let’s go through this honestly.”
“Okay, okay,” Abu Jandal said.
“Let’s start at the beginning of the book,” I replied. He went through and identified one al-Qaeda operative after another. We never let on that the only person we knew he knew for certain was Shehhi. He identified, as al-Qaeda members, seven of those who were later identified as 9/11 hijackers, including hijacker leader Mohammed Atta, whom he had met in the bin Laden compound in Kandahar, and whom he identified as Abu Abdul Rahman al-Masri. Abu Jandal said he thought he had met Nawaf al-Hazmi in bin Laden’s main Kabul guesthouse. He also recognized Salem al-Hazmi, whom he had seen on the front lines in Kabul. He went on to recount where he had seen Ahmed al-Ghamdi and Mohand al-Shehri. He gave us all the nationalities and al-Qaeda aliases of the hijackers, something we hadn’t known at the time.
When shown a picture of Khalid al-Mihdhar, Abu Jandal recognized him by the alias Sinan al-Maki. “Now, Sinan,” Abu Jandal told us, “is married to the sister of Abu Jaffar al-Yemeni, who died in 1997. Abu Jaffar was the son of Ahmed al-Hada. Abu Jaffar was a good friend of mine, and he wanted me to marry one of his sisters, but she changed her mind.”
Ahmed al-Hada was the Yemeni whose phone number was used as an al-Qaeda switchboard. “Is Hada a member of al-Qaeda?”
“Yes, and he even fought on the front lines.”
“What did you think of him?”
“Sinan told me that Hada was known to be very cheap, and that his family in Saudi Arabia didn’t approve of him marrying into a lowly Yemeni family.”
We continued the discussion along these lines, still not saying anything to Abu Jandal about the men being 9/11 hijackers. To him they were just people he had met in safe houses and training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, no different from the other al-Qaeda operatives he had identified. Abu Jandal was unaware that al-Qaeda was behind 9/11. The terrorists whose pictures we had shown him were also those involved in the USS Cole and East African embassy attacks, and he assumed that our questions were related to those incidents.
But for us, this was the first time we had definite confirmation that seven of the suspected hijackers were in fact al-Qaeda members. We now knew for certain that al-Qaeda was behind 9/11.
After he had finished identifying people, I closed the book and said, “Thank you for looking at this. Let’s switch to other topics.” We started talking about the operatives he had identified who were part of the 1998 East African embassy bombings.
I asked Abu Jandal, “Where does Islam allow suicide bombers? Suicide is forbidden in the Quran.”
“Generally that’s true,” he conceded, “but it’s different in war, which is what we’re in. These are our weapons against the missiles of the other side. And so it’s allowed.”
“What about the women and the children that your suicide bombers kill?” I countered. “Where does the Quran justify killing innocents?”
“Like who?” he asked.
“In the East Africa bombings,” I replied, “women and children were killed, and many of them were Muslims.”
“In war there are casualties,” he countered. “If they were good Muslims then God will accept them as martyrs.”
“Hold on,” I said. “I worked the East African bombing. I remember, for example, that we found the remains of a woman and her baby in a bus in front of the Nairobi embassy. Both were incinerated. The mother’s arms were wrapped around the baby, as if trying to protect it. Tell me, what crime did the baby commit? What’s the justification for killing that baby?”
Abu Jandal had a ready reply: “The baby’s reward will come in heaven. Those deaths were a small sacrifice for the wound the bombing inflicted on our enemy and for the inspiration it gave to hundreds of others to become martyrs. Any innocent Muslims killed will be rewarded for their sacrifice in heaven.” A classic attempt to explain away the murder of innocent bystanders, often given by al-Qaeda’s alleged theologians.
Abu Jandal then quoted bin Laden’s 1998 declaration of jihad and told us, “God chooses a contractor [referring to bin Laden] and high school students to defend his religion and launch jihad against his enemies.” This was the first time Abu Jandal had mentioned bin Laden launching attacks. “High school students” referred to the young age of al-Qaeda fighters.
“So this is why there are attacks like what happened recently in New York and Washington?” I asked, seizing on his comment.
“The reason for such attacks and the reason for your [pointing to us] presence here [pointing to the ground] is America’s foreign policies—your occupation of the Arabian Peninsula, the continuous blockade and attacks on Iraq, and the support of Israel in killing and occupying the land of the Palestinians.” He added, “For every action there is a reaction.”
“So were you guys behind the attacks last week?” I asked.
“I am not aware who did it,” he replied.
“I think you guys did it,” I said. Our voices were rising.
“No, this is just a plan for you to attack Afghanistan. And if you do, the mujahideen will rebel, and operations will happen in America itself.” He paused and then said: “The war has not started yet, but if we can hit more, we will.”
Coincidentally, Bob pointed out a Yemeni newspaper from that day, which had been lying on Mahmoud’s desk, with a headline reporting that two hundred Yemenis had been killed in the World Trade Center. (This figure later turned out to be a mistake.) I read the headline out loud—“Two Hundred Yemenis Die in New York Attack”—and showed Abu Jandal the newspaper.
“God help us,” Abu Jandal said, clearly shocked by the number of Yemenis killed.
“Is this justifiable?” I asked.
“No, it’s a horrible crime,” he replied.
“So what do you say to the families of these Yemenis killed in the World Trade Center on behalf of al-Qaeda?” I asked. “What type of Muslim would do this?”
“Bin Laden didn’t do this,” he countered. He waved his hand as if to dismiss my comment. “The sheikh is not crazy,” he added.
“I know al-Qaeda did this attack.” I was staring hard at him.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Someone told me.”
“Who told you?”
“You did. You identified the hijackers of the planes as being al-Qaeda members.” As I completed the sentence, I placed on the table the photos of the seven hijackers he had identified, including Mohammed Atta, Khalid al-Mihdhar, and Marwan al-Shehhi. “These are the hijackers,” I said, pointing to them. “They killed the two hundred Yemenis.”
Abu Jandal slouched back in his chair as if he had been punched in the stomach. His face registered complete shock. After looking blankly ahead in disbelief, his head dropped and he rested it between his hands, with his elbows propped on his knees. He was silent.
About a minute later I repeated: “These are the hijackers. These are the men who murdered thousands of innocent people.”
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “Can I have five minutes, please?”
“Okay,” I said, and signaled to Bob that we should walk out. Yassir walked out with us.
“What just happened? Why did you walk out?” Yassir asked. “You had him.” He didn’t understand why we’d let the moment pass. “Why did you agree to give him five minutes?”
“Let him compose himself,” I said. “He knows he has just identified al-Qaeda as being behind the attacks. It’s a big admission. We need it to sink in to his mind, too. The moment isn’t lost. We’ve got him now.”
We walked back in two minutes later. Abu Jandal still had his head between his hands. “What do you think now?” I asked. He was quiet for a few moments, then looked up and stared directly at me.
“I think the sheikh went crazy. I know these guys. They are all bin Laden’s followers. We used to hang out together.” He shook his head and paused. “I don’t know what to say,” he continued. “This is not what I believe in. I will cooperate fully. What do you need?”
We started off by asking Abu Jandal to tell us everything he knew about the hijackers he had identified. True to his word, he cooperated fully. This was a different person from the Abu Jandal we had first met. He gave us details and valuable information. Among the terrorists he spoke about was Zacarias Moussaoui, who had been arrested on August 16, 2001, by the FBI for suspicious activities related to airplanes. In Abu Jandal’s estimation, Moussaoui was a simpleton.
After discussing the hijackers we turned to members of al-Qaeda’s leadership. Many of the names he supplied were new to us, as was a lot of the organizational structure. The U.S. government’s knowledge of al-Qaeda’s day-to-day operations was dated to when the group was in Sudan.
The 1998 East African embassy bombings had put al-Qaeda on the international terrorism map and had increased the group’s size and funding. This, and the move to Afghanistan, had changed the way it operated. (Neither Junior nor Kherchtou had moved back to Afghanistan with bin Laden.) Abu Jandal filled in the gaps and gave us a more complete picture of the enemy we were now facing.
He outlined the al-Qaeda shura council, and described the personal habits of Abu Mohammed al-Masri, Saif al-Adel, Abu Hafs al-Masri, Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, Sheikh Sa’eed al-Masri, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Abu Assim al-Maghrebi, whose real name was Abdullah Tabarak. We knew that Abu Hafs al-Mauritani (a Mauritian, as his alias indicated) was the only person in al-Qaeda with religious training; he headed the theology, or fatwa, committee. Sheikh Sa’eed al-Masri, an Egyptian, had taken over the finances and administration of al-Qaeda from Madani al-Tayyib. Abu Assim al-Maghrebi was an old colleague of bin Laden’s who had fought with him against the Soviets and who had gone with him to Sudan; it was after the East African embassy bombings that bin Laden had asked him to head the bodyguard detachment.
Abu Jandal explained how and when the operatives and the leadership held meetings. “Abu Hafs and some of the others would regularly meet with bin Laden. But when they all met, the brothers would joke, ‘Al-Shiba [the old men] are meeting, may God help us.’ Because they knew it meant a big operation was coming.” Abu Jandal grinned at the memory.
“Then there’s the military committee, headed by Abu Hafs al-Masri,” Abu Jandal continued. “He also heads the special operations committee, in which Saif al-Adel is involved, and Saif, too, is a senior member of al-Qaeda. He heads the security committee.”
“Is this Abu Hafs?” I asked, showing a picture.
“Yes.” After Abu Jandal had identified Abu Hafs, he laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“I’m just remembering the story of when, during the battle of Jaji, Abu Hafs killed a Russian soldier, and then called up bin Laden while standing on the soldier and told him, ‘I’ve got a Russian officer under my shoe.’”
When we showed him a picture of Saif al-Adel, Abu Jandal said, “It’s out of date.”
“Why?”
“Well, Saif has a scar under his right eye from when a bullet ricocheted and hit him.”
“Do you like him?”
“Members from the Arabian Peninsula don’t usually like his rough manner,” Abu Jandal replied with a grin.
We showed him a series of pictures and he identified everyone he knew in the movement, though often he knew them only by their aliases. “This is Yaqoub al-Dusari, who assists Abu Hafs in the military committee,” he told us, studying one picture. We knew the person in the photograph as Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, alias Harun Fazul, from the East African embassy bombings.
“What are the other committees?” Bob asked.
“The public relations committee is headed by Abu Hussein al-Masri and Abu Annas al-Yemeni,” he said. (Ayman Zawahiri had taken over the committee sometime after Abu Jandal was put in jail.) “And the finance committee is headed by Sheikh Sa’eed al-Masri, who is director of funds, and al-Fateh al-Masri, emir of salaries. Finally, there is the theology committee, headed by Abu Hafs al-Mauritani. That is the senior leadership.” Abu Hussein al-Masri was a son-in-law of Zawahiri’s; Abu Annas al-Yemeni was Ali al-Bahlul, the operative who had created the al-Qaeda propaganda video following the Cole attack.
Below those people, Abu Jandal explained that there were key operatives like Khallad, whose job was to help and motivate the operatives carrying out the attacks. Khallad didn’t plan, but he was assigned tasks outside Afghanistan, such as distributing money, providing fake passports, giving instructions to operatives from bin Laden, and relaying their replies. Abu Jandal seemed to admire him.
“Although Khallad is young, his influence is very notable,” Abu Jandal told us. Khallad was in his twenties. Abu Jandal’s only criticism of him—and this was echoed by other al-Qaeda members we interrogated—was his neglect of his younger brothers, Omayer and al-Bara, after the death of their elder brother, Muhannad. Abu Jandal told us that at one point he had confronted Khallad because Omayer was living with takfiris. Takfiris’ enemies are the near enemy, the governments of their own countries; they don’t believe in the global enemy that al-Qaeda believes in. While al-Qaeda adopts some takfir ideology, it isn’t overwhelmingly takfiri; and takfiris disliked bin Laden because he took their operatives and distracted them from the near enemy to his global jihad. “You’re not acting like Muhannad would have,” Abu Jandal had lectured Khallad, which had prompted Khallad to set his brother straight.
These stories about al-Qaeda members were useful both in helping us to understand the personalities of the people we were up against and in terms of future interrogations. We could show suspects that we were intimately familiar with their lives and that denial would be pointless. So we encouraged Abu Jandal to tell us as much about operatives as he could. And he did. Saif al-Adel, for example, according to Abu Jandal, had a “notorious temper and quick tongue and is known to make threats against al-Qaeda members who anger him.”
Our conversation moved on to bin Laden’s personal security detail, something with which Abu Jandal was intimately familiar. “The sheikh’s bodyguards are personally selected by him. They are then trained by Saif al-Adel and Abu Hafs al-Masri, who teach security procedures.”
Abu Jandal explained that bin Laden’s bodyguards were trusted and important members of al-Qaeda, even sleeping in the same room as the al-Qaeda leader. Abu Jandal had his own room, however, because he was a noisy sleeper, a source of some embarrassment to him: he made “noises” with his “teeth” and didn’t want to awaken bin Laden. He detailed the weapons the bodyguards carried. Their arsenal included SAM-7 and Stinger missiles, AK-47s, RPGs, and PK machine guns (similar to an M60).
Of particular importance, Abu Jandal said, was Abu Assim al-Maghrebi (Abdullah Tabarak), appointed head of the bodyguard detachment after the East African embassy bombings. According to Abu Jandal, Tabarak was on the al-Qaeda shura council. (Documents we found later indicated that he wasn’t, but often sat in on meetings because he was close to bin Laden.) Tabarak was at one point in U.S. custody in Guantánamo Bay, but was handed over to the Moroccans, who later freed him. As of this writing, he is a free man in Morocco.
To Abu Jandal, al-Qaeda was an extended family. He told us that the way bin Laden structured the organization was as one big tribe, with himself as sheikh. It was a way to create loyalty and bonds among members, and bin Laden encouraged not only Abu Jandal and Saqr but other members to intermarry. When speaking about Hamdan, Abu Jandal told us that when his own son, Habib, was born, minutes after he came out of the womb, Saqr quickly took the newborn and ran to bin Laden before Abu Jandal could stop him. “Sheikh, Sheikh, here’s Abu Jandal’s son, Habib,” Saqr cried. The al-Qaeda leader took the baby, chewed some dates in his mouth, and removed a piece or two and put them on Habib’s lips, reciting adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, in both of his ears. Both Abu Jandal and Saqr were proud that the first taste Habib experienced was from bin Laden’s lips.
Despite learning that bin Laden was behind 9/11, from our conversation it was clear that Abu Jandal still cherished his connection to the al-Qaeda leader and was somewhat enthralled by him. Bin Laden’s daily routine was to rise before dawn, pray at the mosque, and then return home. He spent time with his family (he had four wives and many children) and went back to the mosque for more prayers. Afterward, he met with his followers and dealt with al-Qaeda affairs. Abu Jandal described bin Laden’s house as “very simple, with not even a carpet on the floor.” He smiled, as this had triggered a memory. At one point when Abu Jandal was sick, bin Laden came to visit him. When the al-Qaeda leader saw furniture, a bookshelf, and a carpet in Abu Jandal’s home, he told him with a smile: “Look at all this, and you call yourself a mujahid.” Abu Jandal relished the visit.
Even when recalling bin Laden’s nonreligious or non–al-Qaeda-related actions, Abu Jandal was in awe. He told us that often they would play soccer, and that bin Laden was a good player. “Everybody wants Abu Abdullah on their team because he scores goals,” Abu Jandal said.
We spent time talking about al-Qaeda’s different training camps and compounds—all important information for our military. The emir of each camp and each housing complex filed reports on activities and members, and bin Laden himself met with the various emirs. The security reports and personnel data were retained by Saif al-Adel.
We turned to the equipment the group used, starting with their communication system. “To communicate with each other,” Abu Jandal said, “al-Qaeda uses the Yaesu brand radio system, which is solar-powered. Messages are encrypted through a small Casio computer, and an operator reads numbers through the radio. An operator on the other end takes numbers and puts them into the computer to decipher them. Abu Ata’a al-Tunisi implemented the system. The sheikh doesn’t use it himself, but Sa’eed al-Masri does it for him.”
For transportation, al-Qaeda used Toyota pickup trucks (the Hilux model), along with fourteen passenger buses. Bin Laden got the Toyotas from the United Arab Emirates and liked them because of their “maneuverability.” When bin Laden traveled, his security team followed certain procedures to secure the areas, including looking for buried land mines.
Abu Jandal outlined for us the weapons al-Qaeda used, from the air defense weapons and radars (and how they were stored and transported) to the handguns bodyguards carried. He also told us everything he knew about the weapons and capabilities of al-Qaeda’s Taliban hosts. When we asked Abu Jandal if he thought the Taliban would remain supportive of al-Qaeda if the United States attacked, he told us that the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, once said, “Only if the whole country of Afghanistan was burned and every Afghani killed would we be permitted to surrender a Muslim to the infidels.”
Abu Jandal outlined the al-Qaeda training process and the facilities they had available for use. “When trainees arrive they first go through an orientation at the guesthouse, usually given by the public relations emir. He emphasizes the heavenly rewards bestowed on those who are patient and disciplined during training, and he also stresses the importance of morals and Islamic behavior.”
Next they would go to a training camp, where they studied military discipline, administrative issues, and military formations. The trainees were taught to use light weapons, and they took courses in artillery, topography, first aid, and basic explosives, finally advancing to guerrilla warfare. Training concluded with military exercises in which targets were attacked.
“That’s regular training,” Abu Jandal continued. “But some trainees, because of their dedication, morals, and discipline, are selected to attend advanced and specialized training. Saif al-Adel gives an advanced security session. It teaches trainees how to select a target for an operation, gather information on the target, take photographs, and anything else that’s necessary.” Advanced training in explosives and electronics was provided by Abu Abdul Rahman al-Muhajir and Tariq al-Tunisi, but only if authorized by bin Laden himself, and usually for operatives tasked with a mission.
Saif al-Adel also put out regular security announcements, warning brothers not to speak about official business, and instructed them in what to do before traveling outside Afghanistan, such as having a barber cut their hair and beard so they would blend in. Abu Jandal then listed some more of the advice operatives received before traveling.
“Is bin Laden involved in the training?” I asked.
“Yes,” Abu Jandal replied, “the sheikh often helps with training. I remember once we went into the desert and he gave us a training session he called Desert Fox, on how to maneuver at night in the dessert. At another point, he took us to the desert on a very hot day and told us to run to the top of one hill in the sand and back. When we returned, he told us, ‘Your path is as difficult and hard as running, but at the end, as on the peak of the hill after conquering it, it is God’s paradise.’ The men were all inspired.”
There were exercises where trainees learned how to hijack planes and were taught assassination techniques. In one exercise they built a skeleton base behind the Khaldan camp and raised an American flag on one of the buildings. Trainees were told to imagine that the base was an American base and to attack it.
Another topic we covered was how al-Qaeda planned an attack, including who would be involved and what the different stages would be. Usually bin Laden met with his military committee—its head, Mohammed Atef, and others, including Abu Mohammed al-Masri and Saif al-Adel. He also met with the consultative committee, which included Sa’eed al-Masri, Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Abu Jandal added that if there was to be a major operation, senior members had to be informed of the justification. Before the East African embassy bombings, they were told, as justification for bombing the embassies, that U.S. Operation Restore Hope had killed thirty thousand Muslims and that the embassies were centers of U.S. intelligence in East Africa.
While on the subject of the embassy bombings, we asked Abu Jandal what he knew about them. He confessed that he had asked bin Laden if he could be a suicide bomber for the attack—a contradiction of his earlier claim of opposing suicide attacks. Bin Laden told him, “This isn’t your time,” and counseled patience.
He told us what he knew about those involved, including Owhali. Abu Jandal remembered seeing Owhali’s picture in the paper under a fake name after the bombing. “I think the alias was Khalid Salem,” he said.
“What do you think we should do with him?” I asked.
“The best thing you can do is execute him,” Abu Jandal said.
“Why?”
“He wants to be a martyr and doesn’t want to live,” Abu Jandal said sincerely, in consideration of Owhali’s interests.
After discussing East Africa, Abu Jandal also told us what he knew about al-Qaeda’s London cell, headed by Fawwaz, former head of the Kenyan cell. When the news came that Fawwaz had been arrested, bin Laden was upset. “He told us that he had told Fawwaz to leave London and come to Afghanistan, but he didn’t listen,” Abu Jandal said, recounting what bin Laden had told him. Bin Laden went on to praise Fawwaz, according to Abu Jandal, and told him that Fawwaz was “a good example and had a capacity that we hope God will compensate us for in return.”
We moved on to other al-Qaeda operations, including the USS Cole bombing. The conversation started after we showed Abu Jandal a picture of Hassan al-Khamiri, one of the suicide bombers. He said he knew him: “This is Hassan, may God bless his soul.”
“How do you know he is dead?” I asked.
Abu Jandal replied, “A feeling inside me tells me he is.” He then admitted that he had seen Khamiri’s photo in a newspaper, identifying him as one of the Cole suicide bombers. Abu Jandal told us that Khamiri had been the emir of the al-Farouq training camp, hit by U.S. missiles in response to the East African embassy bombings. The experience had a devastating effect on Khamiri. Abu Jandal took us through the other operatives he knew who were involved in the Cole, such as Nashiri.
We discussed Americans he had met who had converted to Islam and had gone to Afghanistan. The conversation segued into a discussion of attempts by outside intelligence agencies to try to infiltrate al-Qaeda. Abu Jandal told us that one operative had been recruited by a foreign intelligence agency after being taken to a hotel room, shown pornographic movies, sodomized, and then blackmailed. He folded after Saif al-Adel accused him of being a spy, confessing that in fact that was the case. There were similar stories involving the intelligence of other countries.
The interview with Abu Jandal lasted the entire night. We wanted to get everything we could in that session, in case he changed his mind later about cooperating. When we eventually finished, he seemed relieved and said to me, “Can I ask you a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Please,” he said, “please send my condolences to the American people from a terrorist who used to be part of al-Qaeda.”
At the start of the next evening’s session, I greeted Abu Jandal and said, “Remember what I told you about America’s revolutionary history?”
“Yes,” he replied eagerly.
“Well, here’s a book on that topic. I think you’ll enjoy it.” I handed him a book (in Arabic) about George Washington and the history of the American Revolution that I had found in the U.S. Embassy.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the book gratefully.
We spent that session and every evening for the next week and a half speaking to Abu Jandal and following up on matters raised in the second night’s session that we wanted more information on. Abu Jandal came to enjoy our conversations, and would give us all the information we wanted as we joked and drank tea together. Much later, when we bade him farewell and left Yemen, he hugged Bob and me and invited us to visit his house in Yemen “when I am free and out of jail.”
Abu Jandal talked to us about his path to al-Qaeda. Though he was born in Jeddah, his family later moved to Yemen. His strong religious devotion surfaced around 1988. He started attending a mosque in Sanaa and began studying theology and the Quran. As the war in Bosnia raged, inspired by his teachers and provoked by images and stories of massacres and the rape of Muslim women and children by marauding Serbs, he traveled to Bosnia to help the Muslims fight back.
Back then you couldn’t travel to Bosnia from Yemen directly, so he took a roundabout route. From Sanaa he flew to Damascus, Syria; from there, he drove to Istanbul, Turkey; and from the Turkish capital he flew to Zagreb, Croatia. From Zagreb he drove to Zenitsa, Bosnia, where he was received by the Mujahideen Brigade, the name given to the Arab mujahideen, mostly veterans from Afghanistan, who fought in Bosnia. He gave them his passport and valuables to look after, so that if he was killed in battle no one could identify him as a foreign fighter, and he trained in a camp for forty-five days.
He learned how to use Kalashnikov machine guns, PK machine guns, and RPGs, and also learned topography and combat tactics. After completing the training course, Abu Jandal went to the front lines and engaged in combat against Serb forces. He didn’t fight for long, however, because soon after he went to the front, the Dayton Peace Accords were signed, and Abu Jandal, along with other foreign fighters, was deported. Abu Jandal said that leaders of the foreign fighters, including Abu al-Hareth al-Liby, Abu Hamza al-Jaza’eri, Abu Ziad al-Najdi, and Abu Hammam al-Najaji, were assassinated during this period, after which Abu Jandal and his group were told that they had to leave the country and were no longer needed.
To conceal their identities from spies of their home governments and other intelligence entities, all fighters were given aliases. Abu Jandal had originally picked “Abu Hamza” but was told that it was too common. An Egyptian acquaintance suggested that “Abu Jandal,” with its implication that the bearer of the name could be an agent of death, would be fitting.
In 1996 Abu Jandal traveled to Somalia to help Muslim fighters who were trying to take over the country. They were battling invading Ethiopian forces who opposed their taking control. However, the Somalis, he discovered, were selective with regard to who could fight. From among the group that Abu Jandal had arrived with, only he was accepted—because his dark complexion allowed him to blend in easily. To “avoid complications,” the Somalis declined to use anyone who was patently foreign-born: they wished to maintain the appearance of a native force. Abu Jandal’s description of his route to Somalia matched the route that L’Houssaine Kherchtou had told us al-Qaeda used to transport fighters.
After being accepted, Abu Jandal was approached by ministers from the Islamic Union Movement, or Itihad Islami (his hosts), and asked if he had money to give them “for our cause.” This put Abu Jandal over the edge. “We are not here for the jihad of money, nor the jihad of color,” he angrily told them. He didn’t like their attitude toward fighting and toward fellow Muslims. Without having fought a battle in Somalia, he returned to Yemen.
Later that year he met Muhannad bin Attash, Khallad’s elder brother, at the al-Qaeda guesthouse on October Street in Sanaa. Muhannad, an inspiring figure, convinced Abu Jandal to go to Tajikistan with him to wage jihad. They traveled to Karachi first and met up with other foreign fighters, and this group became known, unofficially, as the Northern Group. Abu Jandal was among the members of the group who in 1996 pledged bayat to bin Laden. He identified the members of the group for us.
Abu Jandal went to the front lines to fight alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. During a battle he injured the bottom of his foot and was evacuated to Khost. He spent three months recovering, and then went to Kandahar to join bin Laden. He served as one of the guards—along with Khallad, Hamdan, and others—during the May 1998 press conference of bin Laden’s following the ABC interview.
After the East African bombings, bin Laden enlisted Abu Jandal, Saqr al-Jadawi, Fayadh al-Madani, and Mu’awiya al-Madani as his bodyguards. Bin Laden gave Abu Jandal a gun with two bullets and told him, “If I am ever about to be captured, kill me first.” The gun and those bullets became Abu Jandal’s most prized possessions.
After a trip to Yemen, Abu Mohammed al-Masri recommended that Abu Jandal be made emir of the Kabul guesthouse. There had been a dispute between al-Qaeda operatives from Egypt and al-Qaeda members from the Arabian Peninsula as to who should be in charge of it. Bin Laden realized that he needed someone who was respected by both groups—and he felt that Abu Jandal fit that bill. Abu Jandal was honored to be appointed.
As emir, his job was to interview people who came to stay, find out why they had come to Afghanistan, and test them to see if they were suitable candidates for membership in al-Qaeda. For this duty he was paid $64 a month by bin Laden. Abu Jandal also traveled around to different training camps, meeting recruits and advocating jihad against America and the importance of al-Qaeda.
Later he moved from Kabul to Kandahar, where he stayed in the bin Laden compound and was paid $94 a month by bin Laden to help protect him. At this point he was recognized as a central figure in the entourage.
Abu Jandal treasured the book on George Washington. (Attorneys who years later interviewed him for the Hamdan trial told me that he still had it and showed it to them.) He read it immediately, devoting an entire day to it, and discussed it with us that evening. He excitedly told me: “Bin Laden is like George Washington. They’re both revolutionaries.”
“No, they’re not,” I replied with a smile.
The intelligence Abu Jandal gave was disseminated across the intelligence and military communities. It was celebrated as a major success. Edmund Hull, Barbara Bodine’s replacement as ambassador to Yemen, called Bob and me into his office and told us: “Congratulations. The Abu Jandal interrogation has caused General Musharraf to accept that al-Qaeda is behind 9/11, and to join the coalition. Well done. That’s a huge success.”
The Abu Jandal 302 to this day is viewed as the most successful interrogation of any al-Qaeda operative. It was immensely valuable in the war in Afghanistan; it was crucial to successful interrogations of many future al-Qaeda operatives that we apprehended; and it provided much of the basis for our knowledge of al-Qaeda. It is still used in interrogating and prosecuting al-Qaeda operatives. (I can talk about Abu Jandal in greater detail than I can about other detainees because his 302 was declassified by the Senate Judiciary Committee.)
The information gained about al-Qaeda’s capabilities, communication systems, and training was eagerly digested by the military community. The war against Afghanistan was delayed so that the information could be best used. Our team was brought to Bahrain to brief military officials, most prominent among them Vice Adm. Charles “Willy” Moore, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. We briefed the admiral on everything Abu Jandal had revealed to us. Our briefing ended late in the day, and we had to spend the night in Bahrain. We intended to fly back to Yemen the next morning. It was the first free evening we’d had in weeks, so we went to a restaurant for dinner.
As we walked out of the restaurant, a group of young men who had congregated in a parking lot nearby started to yell at Bob and another FBI colleague who were walking ahead of the rest of us. The young men grew more and more belligerent, finally grabbing Bob and trying to push him into one of their cars. He resisted, and my friend and FBI colleague Carlos Fernandez and I tried fighting back. But they outnumbered us, and we weren’t carrying any weapons.
From what they were shouting to each other in Arabic, I realized that they were disgruntled Shiite youths who were wannabe Bahraini Hezbollah operatives. They apparently did not like Bob; with his fair skin and blue eyes, he was the most Western-looking of all of us. Bahrain had experienced significant problems with the Shiite segment of their population.
“What are you doing, you fools?” I shouted at them.
“We are terrorists. We are Hezbollah.”
I knew then for sure that they were just bored kids with nothing to do. A real member of Hezbollah won’t call himself a terrorist.
I approached the one who appeared to be the gang leader. “I am Lebanese. I am the real Hezbollah from Lebanon. You’re interfering in my business. Go away.”
He froze, then tried to give me a hug. “Brother, you are one of us, we want to help you,” he said excitedly.
“No, you’re not. I appreciate your sentiment, but get out of here and take your buddies with you before you get into trouble.”
They let go of Bob, apologized, and started embracing me: “We are your Bahraini Hezbollah allies. Long live Hezbollah!” They were drunk.
“Okay, okay, go home now,” I shouted, pushing them off me. They ran to their cars, saluted, and drove off.
We flew back to Yemen the next morning.
“Now can we speak to Ahmed al-Hada?” I asked Qamish.
“Why? He’s just an old man. He’s got no direct connection to terrorism,” Qamish replied. “We’ve been through this before.”
“We have been through this before, but now is different.”
The Yemenis had been giving us the “he’s just an old man” line since the East African embassy bombings. The surviving Nairobi bomber, Owhali, had confessed to FBI interrogators that he had called Hada’s number in Yemen after the attack to let al-Qaeda know what had happened to him and to request a fake passport and money. Still, the Yemenis maintained that Hada was just an old man whose home was used.
“He’s not just an old man, my friend,” I said to Qamish. “Abu Jandal just told us that not only is Hada a member of al-Qaeda, but he is the father-in-law of Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.”
Hada was brought into the interrogation room in Sanaa and seated before us. Andre Khoury, Bob, and I introduced ourselves and read him the Miranda warning, explaining it to him. He waived his right to a lawyer and signed the Miranda document using a thumbprint, as he was illiterate and didn’t know how to write his name.
“As-Salamu Alaykum,” I began, and told him that we were investigating the terrorist attack on America.
“I don’t know anything about terrorism,” he replied, “I’m just an old man.”
“You don’t know anything about al-Qaeda?” I asked.
“No.”
“Okay, then, tell us about your son-in-law Khalid al-Mihdhar.”
“I don’t know anything about my son-in-law. I didn’t even know that that’s his name.”
“You don’t know your own son-in-law’s name? So how did your daughter get married?”
“One day men came to the mosque and asked about my daughter and said they wanted their friend to marry her.”
“And you agreed?”
“Yes.”
“And you never met or spoke to your daughter’s husband?”
“No.”
“You’re a disgrace,” one of the Yemeni officers present shouted at Hada, unable to contain himself. “How can you be a son of a tribe, how can you be an Arab? How do you claim to be Yemeni and say something like this? This is your daughter you are talking about. Your own flesh and blood. This is your honor.” Hada went red.
Andre chimed in: “No self-respecting Arab would do such a thing. What’s wrong with you?” Hada shrugged and didn’t say anything. It was very telling that protecting al-Qaeda was more important to him than his own reputation.
For several hours Hada maintained that he knew nothing. In order to catch him out, Andre and I began testing him about what we knew about him. We would ask him about a specific fact, acting as if we didn’t know the answer. He would reply, denying that he knew the answer. We would demonstrate that he did know the fact. Because Hada was extremely embarrassed to be caught lying, he would then concede that he did indeed know the information, and admit more details. For example, when he claimed not to know the identity and names of his sons-in-law, we showed him photographs of them. Only then did he acknowledge that he knew them and give us information about them. Sometimes we’d ask a question, not knowing the answer, but he’d think we were trying to embarrass and test him again, and so he would tell us what we wanted to know. We slowly built up information this way.
Ahmed al-Hada was originally from Thamar, Yemen. His brothers were well respected in the community, but he was considered the black sheep of the family, which was not financially well off. Hada’s son Abu Jaffar went to Afghanistan and joined al-Qaeda soon after bin Laden returned there from Sudan in 1996; he was a member of the Northern Group.
Around 1997, Abu Jaffar arranged the marriage of two of his sisters to two al-Qaeda operatives he had befriended in Afghanistan: Khalid al-Mihdhar and Ahmed Mohammed Haza al-Darbi. Both Darbi and Mihdhar traveled to Yemen to meet their future brides and got married in a double wedding ceremony attended by other al-Qaeda operatives. A few months later they returned to Afghanistan with their wives.
Hada’s other daughters also married al-Qaeda fighters. One of these sons-in-law was Mustafah al-Ansari, who used the alias Abed al-Kareem al-Maki. Mihdhar had introduced the family to Ansari. Like Darbi and Mihdhar himself, Ansari was a Saudi of Yemeni descent. We knew of him because he had been imprisoned in the Bayt Habra car theft incident, but we were not aware that he was related to Hada. Ansari was later killed while conducting an attack in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, against Western workers at an oil installation. The other of Hada’s al-Qaeda sons-in-law was Abed al-Wahab al-Maki, who was killed in 1999 in Juzor al-Molluk, Indonesia.
Hada was a cog in al-Qaeda’s operations in Yemen. Bashir al-Shadadi was the organization’s main travel facilitator in the country; he had also participated in the jihad in Bosnia, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. His role was to move recruits from Yemen to camps in Afghanistan. The person who helped him organize this movement of mujahideen was Abdul Razaq Saleh al-Nijjar, who was married to Shadadi’s sister. Yemeni recruits were received at the Kandahar guesthouse by Abu al-Kholoud, who was married to Shadadi’s other sister. The operative tasked with training recruits in the al-Farouq training camp was another brother-in law of Shadadi’s named Husam al-Deen al-Himyari. It was felt that blood loyalty would extend beyond ideology, making infiltration of the group less likely. Bin Laden’s son Mohammed, considered by al-Qaeda members to be most like his father, married the daughter of al-Qaeda’s then military commander, Abu Hafs al-Masri.
With his children all being al-Qaeda members, or married to them, Hada’s house in Sanaa naturally became a place where al-Qaeda operatives would meet. On most days someone was there having meetings or just stopping by for a chat. This is what led to his number’s becoming the al-Qaeda switchboard in Yemen. At one point Hada became upset at how high his telephone bill was, prompting Mihdhar to joke that Hada was a “penny-pincher.”
Tragedy struck Hada’s family when Abu Jaffar was electrocuted in 1999 while fishing in Duranta Lake in Afghanistan. He was in a boat with another al-Qaeda member while a third was on shore operating an electric transformer. They communicated by reflecting sun rays, using a mirror. The person on shore misinterpreted the movement of the mirror on the boat as a signal and flipped the switch while Abu Jaffar was still in the water collecting fish. He died instantly. Hada traveled to Afghanistan to visit his son’s grave and stayed with his then-pregnant daughter and her husband, Ahmed Mohammed Haza al-Darbi, who at the time was a trainer at al-Farouq.
Hada decided to join al-Qaeda. He underwent military training at Loghar. Bin Laden met him there and honored him because of his age and known loyalty. Other operatives took to calling him Am Ahmed (Uncle Ahmed). At the end of the training, a thirty-kilometer march was required, and the instructors at first excused Hada because of his age. He became upset, and they responded by appointing him leader of the march. He was proud of leading the formation and carrying its flag. The fighters referred to him as “Umda,” an Egyptian term that translates to “Mayor.”
After training, he wanted to participate in jihad. He was dispatched to the front lines to fight against the Northern Alliance troops of Ahmed Shah Massoud. Due to his age, he was kept in the rear, next to the artillery. Another of his sons, Samir (alias Abed Al-Rahman), joined him in Afghanistan and attended an al-Qaeda training camp. Samir was later killed when he blew himself up with a hand grenade after being cornered by Yemeni security during an al-Qaeda operation in Yemen.
Hada stayed in Afghanistan for about five months. On his way back to Yemen, he stopped in Kandahar, where bin Laden was hosting a dinner. Hada was honored by being seated next to bin Laden. After his return to Yemen, Hada encouraged his third son, Abu Khalil, to travel to Afghanistan to join al-Qaeda.
By the time we had finished, the Yemenis realized that Hada wasn’t just an ignorant old man.
One of the operatives Abu Jandal and Hada had mentioned was Abdul Aziz al-Janoubi, an alias of Ahmed Mohammed Haza al-Darbi. We didn’t know his real name at the time, so we referred to him as Abdul Aziz. Because of the information we already had about him, including the fact that he had been in the same close combat class from which Mihdhar had been selected as a hijacker, we initially thought that Darbi might be among the 9/11 hijackers, but no one fitting his description was registered on any of the flights.
After ruling out that possibility, I had asked Abu Jandal: “Do you think Abdul Aziz is operational?”
“He is in the special operations division,” Abu Jandal had replied, “but to know for sure if he is operational right now, you should check where his family is. If he sent his wife back to her family, that means he’s probably on a mission.” We now asked Hada, the wife’s father, and confirmed that Darbi’s family was back in Yemen staying with him at his house.
From the descriptions Abu Jandal and Hada had given us of Darbi, we were able to further identify him, and we got a picture of him from the Yemenis—he had applied for a Yemeni passport under a different name. We sent out a worldwide alert to police forces and intelligence agencies; a few months later, when I was back in the United States, I stopped at a grocery store in Manhattan and did a double-take when I saw an NYPD Wanted poster for him behind the cash register. Eventually Darbi was captured while attempting to visit his mistress in Azerbaijan.