Read Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda Online
Authors: Morten Storm,Paul Cruickshank,Tim Lister
I thought of all the fighters bin Laden had encouraged to embrace martyrdom while he cowered behind the high walls of a comfortable house. He may have risen to fame in jihadist circles as a fighter, but I felt that the way he had lived his last few years and the way he died in a house full of women and children might cost him some of his lustre.
Even so, the man who had been an inspirational figure to a generation of jihadis was gone. The torch had been passed, but who would grasp it? Plenty of observers – within al-Qaeda and the intelligence agencies that were trying to eradicate it – regarded Anwar al-Awlaki as a candidate.
From Copenhagen I was driven to the holiday villa at Hornbaek where we had plotted the Aminah mission with the Americans. The mood this time was even more intense.
To my surprise Jed gave me a bear hug when I arrived. He seemed slightly embarrassed that I had been so unceremoniously put out to pasture after the Aminah mission.
‘Congratulations on getting bin Laden,’ I said.
‘Thanks, man – this is a huge day for us.’
Klang interjected: ‘You know what this means? Awlaki has just become US public enemy number one.’
It seemed to be the cue Jed was waiting for.
‘We want you to find him. This has become a huge priority for my government.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll find him,’ I replied. I was thrilled to be back in the game.
We agreed I would return to Sana’a to try to reconnect with Awlaki. Within days of our meeting, he showed yet again how difficult he would be to eliminate, even after suddenly appearing in the cross-hairs.
On 5 May 2011, less than a week after bin Laden’s death,
US military drones over Yemen locked
on to a pick-up truck leaving a trail of dust as it sped along a desert track some twenty miles from Ataq, the town where I had visited Awlaki three years previously. This was still his home turf.
US intelligence believed the cleric and several al-Qaeda associates
were in the truck. But unlike the US Navy SEAL raid in Abbottabad, the Yemen operation had been hurriedly put together. Just a day previously, Yemeni intelligence had told US officials they had information indicating Awlaki was staying in a nearby village.
As US officials watched the satellite feed in real time three missiles were unleashed. Seconds later they slammed into the ground, sending up a cloud of debris and smoke. None scored a direct hit.
‘We felt the wave of explosion near the car that shattered the windows,’
Awlaki told a comrade
the next day. ‘We even saw a flash of light, so we thought that we were ambushed and under fire. We thought a rocket was fired on us.’
Awlaki was running for cover when he saw the explosion. The cleric’s driver had sped to a nearby valley, where a few trees offered cover from the drones. Awlaki and his comrades had jumped out and scattered in different directions.
‘Air strikes continued in the different areas, but I was directed by one of the brothers to one of the numerous cliffs in the mountains,’ Awlaki told a comrade afterwards. He slept outside that night and was picked up by al-Qaeda fighters the following day.
‘Something of fear befalls you, but the Almighty Allah sends down tranquility,’
he told the comrade later. ‘This time eleven missiles missed their target but the next time the first rocket may hit it.’
Prophetic words.
The preparations for this mission were more demanding than any before. PET sent me on a refresher weapons course because of the growing dangers of travelling into the tribal areas.
My instructors, Daniel and Frank, were men of few words, but put me through a punishing schedule of all-terrain driving and battlefield first aid. On the shooting range I fired live rounds from an MP-5 sub-machine gun, Magnum pump-action gun, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a handgun. I was taught to shoot using left and right hands in case I was injured. I did drills where I raced towards a target, firing heavier weapons first before using the pistol at close range.
I was taught how to respond if my vehicle was ambushed – and how to shoot out of the windows while driving. If I came under sustained fire I should hide under the steering wheel because the engine block offered protection against incoming fire.
Daniel told me that if I felt my life was in danger at a checkpoint I should never wind down the window but shoot through the door with a handgun hidden in the folds of a newspaper. In one exercise I crouched on the tarmac beside the door and shot at a target on the other side of the car. The 9mm bullet pierced through both doors.
Finally I was taken into an abandoned complex, where I learned how to clear a building and respond to a hostage situation. I was given an MP-5 with ink bullets and each time I edged around a wall I had a split second to hit a target. As I cleared room after room my mind drifted back to the paintballing exercises I had joined with my militant ‘brothers’ in nearby Odense a decade previously. This felt rather more serious.
Frank laughed at the thought that he was training a former Bandido.
The Danes were teaching me these skills to protect me not only from al-Qaeda but from Yemeni government soldiers and tribal militias. In a volatile country where opening fire was a standard means of starting negotiations I could be the target of any number of well-armed groups. Klang told me that if my life was in danger it was permissible to shoot at Yemeni soldiers.
After the weapons training, a stern-looking psychologist working for PET conducted an evaluation on whether I was fit to proceed with the mission, asking me a battery of questions in a hotel suite north of Copenhagen.
‘How do you feel about going back to Yemen?’ he asked.
‘I’m obviously a bit anxious.’
‘It’s good you feel that way. If you didn’t I’d be worried,’ he replied.
‘I feel torn about going after Awlaki. He’s been my friend, and I know he would give his life for me.’ It felt good to talk.
‘That’s normal – it’s only human to have a conscience,’ he replied.
I told him that I’d been ‘self-medicating’ with cocaine to deal with the stress created by my intelligence work.
‘That’s just a temporary solution for a permanent problem,’ he replied clinically.
The psychologist cleared me to return to Yemen. Nobody at PET ever suggested any treatment for my drug abuse. After the Barcelona trip I had told Klang that I was using cocaine to tackle bouts of anxiety but his only concern had been that I should not do it in his presence.
As preparations intensified agents were at my side every day – discussing travel arrangements, where I would live, the options for contacting Awlaki. Perhaps the best advice came from an outdoor specialist at PET whose name was Jacob. He looked at me earnestly as we discussed the mission ahead over coffee.
‘You are the one doing the most dangerous job in the world and you shouldn’t let them forget it,’ he told me. ‘Make sure you demand what you need. And when you are over there, don’t sit with the terrorists because the Americans won’t hesitate to kill you if you are with their target.’
I wasn’t sure whether he spoke from experience or was exaggerating for effect. But it was chilling. I reminded myself that I was dispensable if a target of Awlaki’s profile came into view.
Ultimately I could only rely on myself.
In mid-May I had a last pre-mission meeting with Jed and my Danish handlers, this time in a suite at the Marienlyst Hotel in Helsingør. From the windows there was a fabulous view of the Swedish coastline across the Øresund.
I opened up my laptop in front of Jed at the hotel and fired up the Mujahideen Secrets software. I typed out a message to the cleric, which I signed ‘Polar Bear’ – a private nickname Awlaki had given me. I then entered the public key supplied by
Inspire
magazine and hit ‘encrypt’ before sending it to an email address provided in
Inspire
magazine.
The Danes handed me an iPhone. It was configured so that everything I did was instantly uploaded to Danish intelligence. ‘If you take a picture or video we’ll see it in real time and we’ll be alerted any time you send a message,’ Klang explained. The phone had a Danish SIM card; I would end up running up a massive bill for the Danish taxpayer.
When Jed was gone the Danes also handed me an Acer notebook computer. They asked me to use the new computer when communicating with my al-Qaeda contacts instead of a Samsung laptop Jed had given me before the Aminah mission.
‘We want to be one step ahead of the Americans,’ Klang said. Danish intelligence were asserting their proprietorial rights.
On 23 May I flew into Sana’a. My cover story was that I was back in the country to set up a Yemeni branch of Storm Bushcraft. Fadia had travelled ahead of me. I had suggested to her she could reconnect with her family while I continued work on my Bushcraft venture. She was aware that I wanted to check on Awlaki’s situation, but still had no idea why the cleric was so important to me.
The capital was in tumult with roiling protests, including a sit-in by students in the central square. The day I arrived
clashes erupted
between regime forces and an opposition faction after President Saleh backpedalled on a plan for peaceful transition. Al-Qaeda couldn’t be happier, I thought.
I found a house on 50th Street. Its proximity to the Presidential Palace was problematic given Saleh’s uncertain grip on power, but it was the most affluent neighbourhood in Sana’a. The Minister of Oil lived next door; almost all the properties had guards. It was – by Yemeni standards – an expensive rental. But I was hiding in plain sight. The Yemeni authorities would not expect a hardened jihadi to take up residence among cabinet ministers, and I could justify my extravagance to Awlaki and others on the same grounds – while boasting about the growth of my company Storm Bushcraft and my plans to bring it to Yemen one day.
I also thought there was a possibility that Awlaki might wilt under pressure and accept an offer to seek refuge with Aminah at our home, safe from drones and missile strikes. After all, bin Laden had done
much the same – far from the killing grounds of Waziristan. Then I could turn the cleric over to the Yemeni authorities. He would live; Aminah would be free. And I would not have to glance anxiously at my withering bank balance every day.
Jed had said – grudgingly – that it was worth a try, but he really wanted to see Awlaki ‘eliminated’.
When I returned to Sana’a the security situation was deteriorating. On the morning of Friday, 3 June, an explosion shook our building. My ears were ringing as I rushed to the roof. I trained my binoculars on a column of thick black smoke. It was coming from the Presidential Palace – and soon rumours swirled that President Saleh had been killed in a bomb attack. They were unfounded, but the ageing Yemeni leader was severely burned in the explosion, caused by a bomb that had been
planted in a mosque
in which he was praying.
As the President was flown to Saudi Arabia for emergency treatment, my mission took on extra urgency. Awlaki had not replied to my email to
Inspire
magazine and I feared he had gone into deep hiding after his recent close brush with US drones. If full-scale civil war erupted, I would not be able to stay in Yemen – let alone reach Awlaki. I turned to my old Yemeni jihadi contact, Abdul. He had a friend called Mujeeb who was a reliable go-between with al-Qaeda fighters in the southern tribal areas.
After reconnecting with Abdul, I bought thumb drives and set about writing a message to the cleric which I encrypted using Mujahideen Secrets. I asked Awlaki to send a messenger back with his reply. Polar Bear, I told him, would wait at a restaurant we both knew in Sana’a on three evenings I specified. I uploaded the message on to one of the thumb drives and gave it to Abdul.
‘Tell Mujeeb to get this to Adil al-Abab,’ I told him. Al-Abab, a Yemeni militant I had befriended in Sana’a in 2006, was now AQAP’s religious emir in the tribal areas. I was confident he would be able to get the thumb drive to Awlaki.
‘I’m using Abdul as a last resort because I don’t totally trust him,’ I wrote to Awlaki.
I was covering myself because of the doubts Awlaki had expressed about Abdul. At the same time I was taking a risk. If Abdul discovered the contents of my encrypted message, I would lose an intermediary at the very least and gain an enemy at worst.
The rendezvous restaurant was al-Shaibani, which served traditional meat dishes and was close to our home. I alerted my Danish handlers and they had in turn briefed the Americans. On the first of three designated evenings I waited at al-Shaibani, sipping tea. I had an eerie sensation that I was being watched. Two men dressed in Yemeni clothes were glancing my way a little too often. Perhaps I was worrying too much; after all I made an unusual sight in an Arab capital consumed by unrest. An hour ticked by and it was clear the courier was not coming. It was the same the second night, and I began to fear that Awlaki had not received my message.
On the third evening a slim, dark-skinned young man approached my table. He was wearing his scarf in the style of Marib, a province that was emerging as an al-Qaeda safe haven. He looked like he was in his late teens.
‘Colour?’ the young man asked me in Arabic. ‘
Akhdar
,’ I replied, the Arabic word for green. It was the code word I had provided Awlaki. The messenger fished into his pocket and handed me a thumb drive, the same one I had given to Abdul. The young courier also handed me $300, gesturing at the thumb drive by way of explanation.
‘Let me take a look at this. I’ll meet you at the al-Hamra restaurant on al-Haddah Street in four hours, okay?’ I told him.