Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda (17 page)

Her family looked askance at some of the guests – most of whom were from my immediate circle. Abdul, Jehad Mostafa, Samulski and Ali – the red-haired Danish convert – were there; so was Rasheed Laskar, a British convert from Aylesbury, with a long thick beard and
glasses, who went by the name Abu Mu’aadh and often stayed at my house.

And then, as is customary in Yemen and much of the Muslim world, the party divided into men and women. My new wife wanted me to join her so photographs could be taken. To me that was wholly un-Islamic, a form of idolatry. She also insisted on music at the post-wedding celebrations. Mindful of the Odense fight, I ensured my jihadist friends were gone by then.

At the end of a long day, my bride was brought to my large rented home by her female relatives. So many women dressed in black and wearing the full niqab descended on the house that I had no idea who among them I had married.

When the rest of the party were gone, I realized Fadia was anxious to the point of panic. She stood with all her possessions in a suitcase, in a large house she didn’t know, with a hulking north European who was a militant jihadi – and now her husband. Like me when I was on the road to Dammaj, she must have wondered what she was doing.

I recited a few words from the Koran and said a prayer and then carefully lifted the veil from her face. In true Yemeni tradition, she had been caked in heavy Arabic make-up and henna tattoos for the ceremony.

‘Darling,’ I said, ‘why don’t you go and wash your face?’

Fadia looked crestfallen, thinking that the hours of beautification would bring me to my knees. But to me she was beautiful without make-up, with her caramel skin and dark almond eyes.

I helped her take off her elaborate wedding dress. It was astonishingly weighty.

‘I can’t believe it,’ I said. ‘How did you manage to carry this all day and not die of heat exhaustion?’

What she did not expect was a European sense of romance and seduction. I had prepared her a bath with candles, rose petals and herbs – even a hardcore jihadi can turn on the charm.

Unfortunately, after bathing, she applied a liberal dose of a heavy sweet Yemeni perfume that I could not abide. I asked her to take another shower.

She soon realized she had married a man for whom Islam was ever-present and whose interpretation of the Koran was unyielding. My home had no television; the computer was overflowing with jihadist videos; a cassette recorder played and replayed Islamic lectures. She was surprised to be woken at 4 a.m. on her first day of married life. For me it was a routine occurrence to prepare for
fajr
– the first prayers of the new day. I immediately rose to wash and walk in the pre-dawn cool to the mosque, while my drowsy wife eventually rose from her slumbers to pray at home.

I asked after our first breakfast together whether she would help me read the Koran in Arabic, just as Karima had. I also showed her several of the more gory jihadist videos on my computer. This was completely natural as I was so immersed in this holy battle. She winced and gently reminded me that as this was our first full day of married life, we should treat it as a honeymoon and try to relax together. So we took Osama to Fun City, Sana’a’s answer to Disney World. Its gates were a feeble multicoloured reproduction of a castle’s turrets, and inside girls clad in black niqabs rode merry-go-rounds, like witches flying through the air.

Fadia was not very religiously observant; I thought it would take me a few weeks to educate her to the path of the true Muslim. She had other ideas and was reluctant to wear the niqab, while also harbouring designs to loosen my religious straitjacket.

Before we had been married a week, I asked her to sit with me one afternoon so I could tell her something very serious. She looked apprehensive: perhaps I was HIV-positive or had some disease.

‘I have to go to jihad and I have to go to Somalia,’ I told her. ‘So you have to prepare yourself.’

Plenty of would-be jihadis – in the West and from Arab countries – were excited by events in Somalia. A militia called the Islamic Courts Union had put an end to years of warlordism and anarchy across much of that benighted country. It had brought calm to Mogadishu, a city that had turned into a quagmire for international peacekeepers. For militant Islamists like me, Somalia was a rare victory to be celebrated, where authentic Islamic principles had brought stability.

‘You have to be proud of me and support me,’ I told her.

Fadia was taken aback, but said nothing. It was not customary for a young Yemeni wife to challenge her husband on such issues.

‘Jihad in these times is obligatory. Islam is not only about peace, and if they suggested that when you went to school they were wrong.’

My determination to travel to Somalia grew when Ethiopia – with the encouragement of the Bush administration –
sent troops into Somalia
in July 2006 to prop up the feeble transitional government, which was at risk of being overrun by the Islamic Courts. To any self-respecting jihadi, the invasion of a Muslim country by Christian soldiers was the ultimate provocation. If I wanted to be the true jihadi I would have to return home to Denmark to raise the necessary cash – thousands of dollars – so that I could help expel the Ethiopians.

As I was preparing to leave Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki disappeared. On a boiling day that summer, he failed to turn up at my house to continue his lecture series. I was irritated: they were a highlight of my week.

A few days later I learned from al-Qaeda’s money man in Yemen, Abdullah Misri, that Awlaki had been arrested. He faced a vague and almost certainly fabricated charge of being involved in plots to kidnap a Shi’ite and a US official. The case never went to trial and his followers were convinced the charges were the result of pressure on Yemeni authorities from the Americans.
⁶

The FBI would get its way and obtain access to Awlaki while he was held in a Sana’a jail, most of the time in solitary confinement
. His family’s prominence meant that he was not mistreated, nor were his conditions as deplorable as those of most inmates. But he was not allowed any contact with the outside world and his study circle evaporated, none of us knowing if or when we would see our mentor again.

It was time to leave Yemen for a while. With the words of Awlaki and al-Abab still fresh in my mind, I wanted to start preparing to make my own contribution to the cause of global jihad – and my heart was set on Somalia.

CHAPTER TEN

The Fall

Late Summer 2006–Spring 2007

My plan was to return to Denmark and work for a building company run by a Muslim friend so I could save money to go to Somalia. I had initially wanted to help the Islamic Courts Union by starting a dairy farm in southern Somalia, using the skills I had gained during a few months at an agricultural college in Denmark. But as Ethiopian forces advanced towards the capital, Mogadishu, I knew I would be drawn into the battle for the future of Somalia. Even if it brought martyrdom I had no option but to fight for my religion. Only then would my son grow up being proud of his father.

Fadia, however, persuaded me that she and Osama should follow me to Denmark. On arrival she would need to apply for an EU ‘Schengen visa’ rather than come in as my spouse – because I was not technically yet divorced from Karima.

Fadia had never flown before and was more than a little anxious. When she passed through Frankfurt airport, a security officer demanded she take off her long jacket. She refused, saying it was traditional dress, and was nearly detained. All the same, when she arrived in Copenhagen, I was less than happy to see she was wearing nothing more than a scarf on her head, far less the niqab I had bought her in Sana’a.

‘It doesn’t matter that you are in Europe; you have to dress like a Muslim woman,’ I told her. ‘Did you marry me just so you could come to Europe and get a passport here?’ I asked bitterly. Perhaps I was haunted by previous relationships. Within days she found a Yemeni
woman who supplied her with all the garments she needed to appear respectable.

We moved into a rented apartment in a neighbourhood of Aarhus heavily populated by immigrant families. My network of extremist contacts continued to grow. My strident views and exotic travel had made me something of a celebrity in Danish Islamist circles.

I was happy with Fadia. She was gentle, intelligent and kind to Osama, who adored her. But I knew that at some point my son had to be with his mother and so I came to an agreement with Karima. She had left Morocco to resettle in Birmingham and said that if I brought Osama home I could have regular access to both children.

The arrangement meant that I would be shuttling between Denmark and Birmingham, but I was overjoyed to be reconnected with my daughter, Sarah, and was capable of keeping the peace with Karima. I wanted to see as much of my children as I could before the next chapter of my march towards jihad.

Commuting between Aarhus and Birmingham also extended my contacts with supporters of the Islamic Courts in Somalia, of whom there were a surprising number in the English Midlands. They had a significant presence at a large mosque in the rundown Small Heath district of Birmingham. The Ethiopian incursion had enraged the Somali community and dramatically boosted the popularity of the Islamic Courts, fusing their cause with Somali nationalism.

I went to a crowded event at the mosque with a Danish-Somali friend, who had travelled with me from Aarhus. He also had family in Birmingham – a cousin called Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame.

Warsame was a wiry teenager, with drooping eyelids that gave him the appearance of being half asleep. He had protruding front teeth.

He had evidently been inspired by the speeches from representatives of the Islamic courts.

‘I’m going. I’m definitely going.’

‘
Masha’Allah
. That makes two of us,’ I replied. It would be the beginning of a long and momentous relationship. I was keener to get to Somalia than ever. I was being regaled with stories via email about the killing of ‘disbelievers’; mainly Ethiopian troops. Two of my Sana’a study circle had already travelled to fight in Somalia – Ali, the Danish
convert, and the American, Jehad Serwan Mostafa. Mostafa had emailed me, urging me to join the fight. ‘We are winning!’ he had exclaimed.

Warsame invited me to a dinner at a Somali-Yemeni restaurant for the Islamic Courts representatives who had attended the conference. He had come to the UK three years before as a refugee and was desperate to return home to fight the Ethiopians but lacked the funds to travel.

I quickly befriended this kid. His ardour for the cause impressed me. I would drop by his small council flat near the Small Heath mosque. An ancient leather sofa, piled high with lecture notes, dominated the room. He was taking a course in electronic engineering. But all he could talk about was confronting the Ethiopians and liberating his country. In October 2006 the Ethiopians began to
push eastwards
from the town where they had been protecting Somalia’s hapless government. As we followed news reports and received messages from friends it seemed obvious the troops were intent on attacking the capital.

At the same time, authorities in Yemen, a short journey by sea across the Gulf of Aden, moved against militants they suspected of helping the Islamic Courts.

Early on the morning of 17 October I had a frantic call from the wife of Kenneth Sorensen, one of my Sana’a study circle. He had been arrested along with Samulski, two young
Australians and my British friend
, Rasheed Laskar. They were allegedly involved in a plot to smuggle weapons from tribes in lawless eastern Yemen to the Islamic Courts Union, a transaction organized on the Yemeni side by Abdullah Misri, the car-dealer and al-Qaeda financier.

I knew the reputation of the Yemeni security services and worried that Sorensen and the others would be tortured in jail. I told Sorensen’s wife I would try to publicize the case in Denmark. I asked my friend Nagieb to put me in touch with a television station and the next day recorded an interview with Denmark’s TV2.

The crew met me in a shopping arcade in Aarhus. I knew the interview would be heavily edited so tried to get across my appeal as succinctly as possible. Sorensen was innocent, I insisted. He was a friend who was studying Arabic and had no involvement with militants.
The Danish government should be working for his release or at least ensuring it had consular access to him.

In reality, I suspected he was involved in the scheme, though I had no idea how far it had evolved. My suspicions were deepened by the arrest in Yemen of another associate of mine from radical circles in Denmark, Abu Musab al-Somali. He had come to Denmark as a refugee when he was a child, but returned to Somalia and joined with foreign fighters affiliated with the Islamic Courts Union – shuttling between Mogadishu and Yemen. He received a two-year jail sentence for his part in the weapons plot.

Sorensen and the others were luckier – they were
released and deported
in December. But my television interview had made me an even greater ‘person of interest’ to the Danish authorities.