Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda (41 page)

I changed the subject to my reason for being in Yemen. I had rehearsed the presentation, but only now would I find out if it had any traction.

‘There are brothers in Sweden who are ready to avenge the death of Sheikh Anwar. They are also ready to take an oath to AQAP, so I would like to find a way to contact Abu Basir [Wuhayshi],’ I told them. My hope was that I might be able to establish an avenue of communication through couriers as I had with Awlaki. That would give me a chance to re-establish myself as the group’s point man in Europe – a source of supplies and recruits.

I was telling the truth. Shortly before travelling to Yemen I had met with a group in the Swedish city of Malmö who were looking for an overseas destination to wage jihad. Again, I had encountered them because of the many militants I had met over the previous decade. Danish intelligence had asked me to call on Abu Arab, the Danish-Palestinian who had adopted me during my visit to Lebanon back in 2007.

Abu Arab – real name Ali al-Hajdib – had spent some time in a Lebanese prison because of his role in the extremist Fatah al-Islam group. He had been tortured. The Danish government had done its duty and sent a diplomat to check on him in jail. Instead of thanking her he told her that when he came out he would kill her.

Despite his record, al-Hajdib had been allowed to resettle in Denmark. When I told him I was planning to return to Yemen, he urged me to come with him to Malmö to meet one of his brothers who lived there, yet another member of the Hajdib jihadist dynasty. I had met one brother – Saddam – shortly before he blew himself up as Lebanese security forces prepared to storm his house. Another was still languishing in jail for placing bombs on passenger trains in Germany. Their mother had produced eleven sons altogether and – as far as I knew – no daughters.

Two of the younger generation were especially keen to travel to Yemen. One was Abu Arab’s nephew – a nineteen-year-old IT student who was tall, slim and fair-skinned, and had a short, wispy beard. He wore Western clothes to blend in and keep off the radar screen of security services. His cousin, who lived in Gothenburg, also enthused about going to Yemen.

The Hajdibs were afraid their residence might be bugged so we went for a walk in one of Malmö’s public parks. When I told them I was returning to Yemen to re-establish contact with AQAP after the death of Awlaki, the young IT student looked elated.

‘If you do re-establish contact we would like to come and to make
bayat
[an oath of allegiance to Wuhayshi]. I could offer myself to work on
Inspire
magazine,’ he said.

I saw the Hajdibs as my next ‘Warsame’ – a conduit through whom I could learn more about AQAP, build a better picture of its intentions and alliances. I put the idea to Klang.

‘These guys are very dangerous – ticking time bombs. It might be a good idea to send them to Yemen so that we can establish a new connection to the group,’ I said.

Klang warmed to the prospect: ‘You’d be in email contact with them without putting yourself in danger.’

But we knew this depended on me establishing contact with Wuhayshi, which PET then regarded as a long shot.

So I began to tell Mujeeb about the Hajdibs. It may sound like an absurd contradiction but I always tried to tell the truth as often as possible in my undercover work. It was the only way I could keep my story straight. Lying was easy, but remembering lies was difficult. Besides, if AQAP did connect with the Swedish militants, it would be important that they endorsed what I had said.

I told Mujeeb that I too wanted to avenge Awlaki’s death; he promised he would make contact with Wuhayshi. I handed him a letter I had typed out for AQAP’s leader on my laptop. It included plenty of red meat to get Wuhayshi’s attention.

‘My eyes are filled with tears over the great loss of my friend, my brother and my teacher, Shaheed Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki, may Allah accept him as a pious man … Ameen. His death must be revenged with the kuffar’s bloodshed and fear insha’Allah …

‘Brother Anwar have requested from me to find brothers in Europe who could come over and get training with the intensions to return to their countries and work for our Deen. I have found a few and they are now ready insha’Allah.’

I had another card to play. My Kenyan friend Ikrimah, the long-haired al-Shabaab operative, wanted to establish contact with Wuhayshi now that Awlaki was no more. If I could connect them it would be an opportunity to track connections between different al-Qaeda affiliates, always a challenge for Western intelligence.

‘Brother Ikrimah in Somalia has also found a few brothers with European and American citizenship, they too are clean and are ready to return after receiving the necessary skills,’ I wrote. ‘This brother got a special message for you from your own teacher from Afghanistan.’
²

I also showed I was well aware of operational security.

‘I cannot mention my name, my look or my nationality over this message, because it is not secure … Future communication should happen by a personal messenger, Adil [al-Abab] can receive my messages and forward them to you, and you can do the same in return. I do not accept any use of emails, mobiles, sms, phones etc’

A few days later Mujeeb and I met again. He told me he had just returned from meeting al-Qaeda figures in the tribal areas and had given them the letter.

‘I might even be able to arrange a meeting for you with Abu Basir if you wish – perhaps in the New Year,’ he said.

‘Yes of course, definitely,’ I said quickly, but with more than a tinge of apprehension. Such an encounter would be the most dangerous mission I had undertaken. Given the heavy fighting between government forces and al-Qaeda in the tribal areas, it also seemed very unlikely. Even as AQAP was taking on the Yemeni army in the south it had one eye on further attacks against America.

Mujeeb promised to provide me with sixteen gigabytes of unedited video footage from AQAP to circulate to their Western supporters. They had been unable to publish a new issue of
Inspire
since the deaths of Awlaki and Samir Khan and they were eager to advertise the territorial gains they were making in southern Yemen. Abdul showed me surveillance film shot recently of the US embassy in Sana’a and the Sheraton Hotel adjoining it. Unlike most top-class hotels, this one was surrounded by sandbags, and on the roof of the hotel were US soldiers, probably Marines. Abdul told me the group believed the Americans were running counter-terrorism operations from the hotel.

Armed with the promises Mujeeb had made me, I returned to Denmark just before Christmas to brief PET. They seemed more interested than before – though we all knew a lot still hung on Mujeeb’s word.

Klang suggested I travel across to Malmö again with Abu Arab to meet with the Hajdib clan. This was a risk for PET; they had no authority to send one of their agents on a fishing expedition in Sweden. PET and the Swedish intelligence agency, SAPO, cooperated in breaking up terrorist plots, but the Swedes would not be amused to find Danish intelligence running a freelance operation on their turf.

Even so the Danes saw an opportunity. The young English-speaking IT student would be the perfect candidate to succeed Samir Khan as the editor of
Inspire
magazine. I would have a key contact right at the heart of the group. The email address provided by
Inspire
was the portal through which supporters in the West could get in touch with the group. A year and a half after Aminah travelled to Yemen we were again plotting to send European extremists to join the terrorists.

The earnest IT student was still hungry. I met him and his father in a park in case SAPO were already eavesdropping.

‘I’ve been to Yemen and passed on a message to Wuhayshi and am awaiting his reply. In the meantime you should prepare yourself,’ I told him.

He was quietly jubilant, like a rookie player in the minor leagues suddenly called into the national team.

‘I only wish I could go – but the
kuffar
are monitoring me too closely,’ Abu Arab said. He was beaming with pride that a new generation of the Hajdib family were about to grasp the torch.

I returned to the UK for Christmas. It was not normally a time of year that I enjoyed. My childhood memories of what should have been a magical season were painful; as a father I rarely had my own children with me over the holidays. But this year Karima had agreed that they should stay with me and Fadia. Even though they had been brought up as Muslims, I spoiled them with gifts and every moment was precious. It was a bittersweet time. I knew I would soon have to return to Yemen and I found it hard to say goodbye.

I was always apprehensive before going on missions but this time I was especially uneasy. Finding Wuhayshi would truly take me into the
lion’s den. What troubled me most was that if I didn’t come back alive, my kids might never know the truth about my life as a double agent. No doubt all they would see on the news was that another European jihadi had been killed overseas, and then my photograph would appear on the screen. Neither their mother nor their stepmother would be able to tell them that my life was not all it seemed.

Was I the veteran boxer extending his career one bout too far?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Lion’s Den

January 2012

On 7 January 2012 I boarded a flight to Yemen. As I stared out from my window seat I listened to the band Metallica on my headphones. For five years their thumping tunes had helped pump me up before missions, but this time I turned up the volume extra loud.

Abdul was waiting at the airport for me, and we drove to his home, a comfortable three-storey brick building where I would stay for the next few days. Whatever businesses he had, they still appeared to be doing well.

Mujeeb visited but had neither news nor the video footage. It was time to exert some pressure.

‘Do you know the brothers in different parts of Sweden collected the money for me to fly to Yemen so that I could gather this material and establish a connection with Abu Basir?’ I said to Abdul angrily, channelling the role-playing lessons I had been given at the MI6 facility at Fort Monckton.

‘Mujeeb is just wasting my time. I don’t think he met with them. You know what – I’m going to travel down by myself to Abu Basir to tell him that Mujeeb is a liar.’

I had spoken without thinking. It was rash, committing me to a dangerous journey into the tribal areas. I checked myself. I could not let my determination to prove the CIA wrong make me do something stupid.

Abdul was anxious. He persuaded Mujeeb to call up a Yemeni militant who had connections to AQAP. His name was Hartaba. He had once worked as bin Laden’s bodyguard in Afghanistan, and more
recently he had been Awlaki’s driver. He knew the safest – or the less treacherous – routes to territories controlled by AQAP. We could meet him on the road south from Sana’a.

The next day Abdul and I set out in his Toyota Corolla. My fears, felt so keenly in England, were not going away. Depending on whether he was a double or triple agent, Abdul could easily hand me over. What if the CIA had warned him about me?

But my immediate concern was to navigate the roadblocks out of Sana’a. I donned a Western business suit – for the first time in at least a decade – and held my iPhone to my ear, trying to make it look like I was taking calls. I was a businessman who had a meeting in Aden, and Abdul was my driver.

‘Just look important,’ he said.

I made my best impatient face at the soldiers. It worked.

After hours of driving, Abdul slowed down near a dusty settlement. The villagers eyed us suspiciously. This was bandit territory far from government control. My palms began to sweat; my toes curled.

A wiry young man climbed into the back of the car. I looked to see if he was armed, but tried to appear nonchalant.

‘Do you know who that is?’ Abdul asked me. ‘It’s Abu Basir’s younger brother.’

He was the spitting image of Wuhayshi. I nearly hugged him with relief.

In the late afternoon we arrived at a small village just off the road from Sana’a to Aden that would not have been out of place in an Old Testament scene. Abdul pulled up outside what seemed a half-finished shack. ‘This is Hartaba’s house.’

Hartaba came to greet us. He was in his mid-forties but jihad had aged him. He was a caricature: a wiry frame and narrow face, big and slightly manic eyes, and a long beard. He tilted his head to hear because beatings in a Jordanian jail had left him almost deaf in one ear.
¹

Inside his bare home, Hartaba introduced us to two heavily armed Saudi fighters. We prayed together and then Hartaba told me to take off my suit and put on traditional salwar kameez. He gave me tribal headgear to hide my face, though looking at my height and build he seemed to think I was beyond camouflage.

I noticed several of my new companions had mobile phones. I told them to take the batteries and SIM cards out so that US spy satellites could not fix our position. They seemed almost indifferent to the prospect of martyrdom but I was in no rush to become another victim of America’s favourite weapon.