Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda (38 page)

About 5 foot 10 inches, he might have passed himself off as a Yemeni but told me he was an American of Indian descent. We exchanged a few words in Arabic.

With Jed looking on, I wrote a new email to Awlaki providing venues and times where a courier could pick up the briquettes and sandals from me in Sana’a.

I was not going to heed his advice to have my wife deliver the package. I encrypted the email and hit ‘send’.

Then Jed and Klang went shopping for the supplies Aminah had requested. I could only imagine what an odd couple they would have made in the ladies’ sections of Copenhagen’s department stores – picking out skirts, tops, bras and underwear. Klang later joked that he at least knew his way around the lingerie section. They also bought the shampoo, conditioner and hair colouring. The expenses department at Langley must be used to unusual purchases in the name of keeping America safe.

The two agents neatly folded everything into a sports bag which Klang kept until I was ready to travel. Remembering the CIA plots to poison Fidel Castro, I made a mental note to keep the toiletries well away from my wife in Yemen.

I would not yet be bringing Awlaki his fridge. Klang said the CIA
were ‘customizing’ one for the cleric and it would take several weeks to build. I had no doubt CIA technicians were busily at work figuring out the best way to hide a satellite transponder in the freezer compartment.

Before I left, Jed bought me a gift: a Viking horn with an inscription in gold. I was their warrior again – readying for another battle.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

A Long Hot Summer

July–September 2011

I flew back to Yemen on 27 July 2011 into blinding heat. The operation to neutralize Awlaki was moving into high gear, but the country was a failing state, with most of the south beyond government control and paralysis among competing factions in and around Sana’a.

I wondered whether the chaos had prevented Awlaki from organizing a courier, because none showed up on either day I had appointed. Had Awlaki got my message? Did he still trust me?

The next day I sent Awlaki an encrypted email:

‘I am back in Sana’a and got your shoppinglist. I have waited for the brother to meet me on thursday and saturday, he did not show up. I ask Allah that he is safe and fine insha’Allah.’

I provided three new times and places for the courier to pick up the supplies, telling Awlaki I would only wait fifteen minutes.

‘I do stick out and people notice my presence. I will try to come down and join you in mid Sept insha’Allah. Take care habibi,’ I wrote.

Despite the considerable risk of such a trip, it would undoubtedly make it easier for the Americans to track him. I had just about given up on the idea of luring him to the capital.

On 9 August I received a reply. I copied the seemingly random string of letters, numbers and symbols in the body of the email and pasted
them into the Mujahideen Secrets software on my laptop. Then I entered my personal cipher key and pressed ‘decrypt’.

Nothing happened.

Perhaps I had entered the wrong values? Or had someone got to my computer? I had to calm down.

I started again. A few seconds later the random text turned into prose. I breathed deeply.

‘Assalamu alaykum, sorry man communication is a bit slow with me. I will insha’Allah send someone to meet you at one of the 3 appointments you set. It will be a different brother from first time so we will use the same codes as before: he says lawn [colour] you say akhdar [green],’ the cleric wrote.

‘Try to write down everything in a letter to me because it is not safe sending someone to meet you to[o] many times. You should open up a new account to use when you email me from Yemen so that the enemies do not know that this guy was emailing from Europe and then from Yemen. This way they may be able to figure out who you are,’ Awlaki added.

I copied the message into the draft folder of the Telenor email account I shared with Danish intelligence so they could pass the details on to the CIA and their Sana’a field operative.

I was impressed by Awlaki’s awareness of operational security and his concern that I not be suspected by Western security services. It was an important detail. I remembered how he had once said to me: ‘It is better to have an enemy close to you than having a stupid friend,’ a judgement he might have reversed if he had known which side I was really on.

The first rendezvous was at 10.30 p.m. on 12 August in the car park outside a KFC restaurant in the centre of Sana’a.

The drive in my Suzuki pick-up truck from my home would normally have taken about fifteen minutes but that night I went a round-about way. As my instructors had taught me in Edinburgh I weaved through the narrow streets, taking turns at random.

I had weapons in the car which I had borrowed from Abdul, including a pistol in the glove compartment and a Kalashnikov under a
blanket on the back seat. Guns are ubiquitous in Yemen; none of the locals would have batted an eyelid. I had told Abdul I wanted to be able to defend myself if the Yemeni security services came after me.

At the KFC I waited nervously. Given my size and skin colour I was easy to identify. There was no sign of the CIA field officer I had met in Copenhagen, but if he knew what he was doing that was the way it should be.

I took in the scene. Colonel Sanders in his apron stared down at me from a brightly lit hoarding. Soaring above the Colonel, and lit up in the night sky, were the six towering minarets and monumental white domes of the al-Saleh mosque complex. Built by the beleaguered President, the mosque had recently been completed at a cost of nearly $100m, in the Arab world’s poorest country.

Gaggles of well-dressed young Yemeni men were coming in and out of the restaurant. KFC is considered an expensive treat for most Yemenis. It seemed to be a busy evening, no surprise because it was the middle of Ramadan and the night hours were a time of feasting.

Perhaps I ought to pop in for some fried chicken, I thought. But then I caught sight of him, walking towards me across the car park, silhouetted against the lights of the mosque. He was older than the other messenger – perhaps in his mid-twenties – and shorter. But he too was dark-skinned and wore the unmistakable Marib headgear. We exchanged the code word and I gave the courier the sports bag with the wooden briquettes and other supplies, including the clothes for Aminah.

I also passed him a thumb drive with a Word document I had written for the cleric. I wanted him to approve my creation of an ‘Islamic Defence Force’ to protect Muslims in the West from Islamophobic attacks by training them in shooting, martial arts and survival skills. The idea had come to me following the deadly terrorist bombing and shooting in Norway by the anti-Muslim extremist Anders Breivik the previous month. If I could get Awlaki engaged in the project I would have another pretext for continuing my communications with him. I also knew the outfit would be a draw for Islamist extremists across Europe, which might help me identify new targets.

‘Is this for Samir Khan?’ the courier asked.

That surprised me. It was terrible tradecraft.

The editor of AQAP’s online
Inspire
magazine,
Khan had been born
in Saudi Arabia but had lived in the US for much of his life. He moved to Yemen in 2009, where he aligned himself with al-Qaeda and connected with Awlaki.
Khan met with the Nigerian underwear bomber, Abdulmutallab, and helped Awlaki research the air cargo system for the printer bomb plot.

‘No, my brother – this is secret,’ I reprimanded him. With a crestfallen look he disappeared into the night.

I received an encrypted email from Awlaki three days later:

‘Assalamu alaykum … I received all the stuff … except the flash! A brother who was delivering it got into a situation and had to destroy it. Things turned out to be fine but now I do not have the flash. The sandals are good. The tablets I was looking for are hexamine. The ones you sent are something else. If you are travelling again then see if you can get me hexamine tablets,’ he wrote.

So they did want the tablets for detonating explosives.

Awlaki asked me for any new information on the arrest of Warsame. And he had a specific request: ‘I heard on the news that the New York Times reported that al Qaeda in Yemen is buying a lot of castor beans to make ricin and attack the US. Find me what you can on that.’
¹

I
found the
New York Times
article
.

‘For more than a year, according to classified intelligence reports, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen has been making efforts to acquire large quantities of castor beans, which are required to produce ricin, a white, powdery toxin that is so deadly that just a speck can kill if it is inhaled or reaches the bloodstream. Intelligence officials say they have collected evidence that Qaeda operatives are trying to move castor beans and processing agents to a hideaway in Shabwa Province, in one of Yemen’s rugged tribal areas controlled by insurgents.’

I shuddered. It seemed like the cleric had something in the works and wanted to know what was being reported. For the first time, I thought that it did not matter any longer how he was stopped. He now seemed ready for any form of attack against the West, with civilians as the main target.

On 17 August I left Yemen again for Europe. Every summer my children spent a couple of weeks with me, camping, hiking, canoeing and fishing. That time was sacrosanct – even if it disrupted the mission to go after the most wanted terrorist in al-Qaeda. I also needed to get ready for a long-planned trip to the jungles of Borneo with a friend from the UK. I imagined my mission in Yemen might run many more months and I needed to recharge my batteries.

Just before leaving I sent an email to Awlaki that I would be overseas for my company, Storm Bushcraft. I knew that if he later checked its website he would see photographs of the expedition to Borneo. I told him I had left a USB stick with the media clippings on ricin with a contact in the capital and provided his address and telephone number.

When I returned to Europe I explained the situation to Jed and the Danes and gave Jed the number of my acquaintance in Sana’a so the US National Security Agency could monitor his calls.

At the end of the first week of September I received a
text from my contact in Sana’a
. ‘The guy just called me and I’m waiting for him now at CityStar.’ I called Klang so he could relay the message to the Americans.

‘It’s being picked up; be ready now,’ I told him – explaining the rendezvous point was a shopping mall in the Yemeni capital. Less than an hour later my contact sent me a text telling me the pick-up had been successful. I imagined the Americans – by tracking the contact’s calls – had monitored the handover. Maybe this time the USB stick would lead the CIA all the way to Anwar al-Awlaki – but hopefully not to Aminah.

The mission was going according to plan. Awlaki had confidence in me, and when I returned from the Far East I might be able to travel into Yemen’s badlands to meet him. The next day I boarded a flight to Malaysia, on my way to the jungles of Borneo. It was a welcome escape. No one could reach me; and I had to survive on my own ingenuity.

But just days after my return reality intervened in the most brutal way. On a brisk late-September afternoon, I turned on the television and saw breaking news. I stared at the screen, mesmerized.

Early that day
– 30 September – CIA drones had taken off from a base in the southern deserts of Saudi Arabia and spotted a group of pick-up trucks that had congregated in Yemen’s north-west al-Jawf province. Hearing the faint whirring sound they had come to dread, several men who had just finished breakfast rushed back to their vehicles. One of them was Awlaki, who had come to the region because of the growing threat from drone strikes in Yemen’s southern tribal areas.

Two Predator drones focused lasers at the trucks to pinpoint the targets while the bigger Reapers took aim. The Reaper ‘pilots’, operating their vehicles from thousands of miles away, unleashed a clutch of Hellfire missiles. Awlaki and six other al-Qaeda operatives were killed instantly, their vehicles reduced to skeletons. One of those killed was Samir Khan; the CIA had no idea he was travelling with Awlaki. He was just twenty-four.

As I watched, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a text message from Klang: ‘Have you seen the news?’

‘I don’t believe it,’ I replied.

‘No – it’s true.’

The US had finally liquidated the man it considered an urgent and present danger. Awlaki, US authorities subsequently alleged, had risen to become AQAP’s chief plotter of attacks against the West and was plotting new attacks against the US and Western interests when he was killed.

‘The death of Awlaki is a major blow to al-Qaeda’s most active operational affiliate,’
President Obama announced
later that day at a speech in Fort Myer, Virginia. ‘Awlaki was the
leader of external operations
for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In that role, he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans … and he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda.’