Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda (42 page)

We set off in a Toyota Land Cruiser in the golden evening light for al-Qaeda’s strongholds. Abdul and I sat up front next to Hartaba; the Saudi fighters and Wuhayshi’s brother on the open-top cargo bed. The truck was full of weapons. I grasped a Kalashnikov which had been thrust into my hands along with an ammunition belt that was draped around me. The weapon was so long that I had to point the muzzle out of the window.

Abdul had a grenade launcher resting on his lap. ‘Are you sure it’s not going to go off?’ he asked Hartaba after the car hit a large pothole and the top of the launcher banged against the roof. Abdul looked terrified, and I wondered again about his allegiance.

Hartaba got so annoyed that he stopped the car and explained that the weapon would only fire if levers were released. The same model had been used in an
attack on the car of a senior British diplomat
in Sana’a. He had been driving the getaway car used in the attack, he added, with a hint of pride.

‘It missed by a few millimetres.’

Hartaba warmed to his theme and I could not help but admire the man for his sheer endurance. Hartaba said that on the day Awlaki died AQAP fighters had only been able to identify him by the skin on his forehead when they reached the carcass of the vehicle. Most of his body had been vaporized. Hartaba’s eyes glistened as he told the story.
²

He also talked about how AQAP was growing ever stronger in the southern tribal areas of Yemen. The group had raided military factories and taken machines to make their own ammunition.

We passed through a checkpoint belonging to southern separatist fighters, who waved us on – another sign, I thought, of just how fast this country was falling apart. Villagers chanted ‘al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda’ as we clattered through dusty settlements. More than one policeman looked the other way. I glanced at Hartaba, who was miming along in a trance to the jihadist
nashid
s blaring on a cassette player. To evade the last government checkpoint he went off-road and killed the headlights.

As the moon rose, we sped through the luminescent desert. Adrenalin surged through me and I felt a wave of exhilaration to be so deep behind enemy lines. For a few brief seconds on this perfect Arabian night I forgot all about my mission.

We
reached the town of Jaar
late that night. It had been transformed in the ten months since al-Qaeda fighters had seized control of it – renaming it the ‘Emirate of Waqar’ – or ‘dignity’. It was now the capital of al-Qaeda’s new statelet. The checkpoint we passed through was manned by Ansar al-Sharia fighters. The black banners of al-Qaeda were everywhere and fighters milled around the town. It was a new ground zero in the war on terrorism. Yemeni forces were positioned within firing range of the town and US, Saudi and Yemeni air power circled in the skies above. I realized that I was now in their crosshairs.

We pulled up at what passed for a restaurant and Hartaba went inside. He emerged with Adil al-Abab, AQAP’s religious leader, whom I had befriended in Sana’a six years previously. His cheeks were even plumper. No wonder we had found him in one of Jaar’s few functioning restaurants.

He had the same handlebar moustache above his pursed lips and still wore his beard short – probably because it wouldn’t grow any longer.

‘
Masha’Allah! As salaam aleikum
Abu Osama! How are you? How’s your son, Osama?’ al-Abab gushed.

‘Fine. We are both fine.’

‘We should go. You shouldn’t be seen here if you want to come to meet Abu Basir. And I’ve got an old friend to introduce you to,’ al-Abab said, with a broad smile.

We piled into al-Abab’s white Toyota, a government vehicle the group had commandeered. He was a truly awful driver who had clearly
taught himself after getting hold of the car. We juddered down potholed streets to a large house painted yellow and used for religious ceremonies. It was sparsely furnished but included a big chair with gold ornaments the militants had looted from the governor’s headquarters.

The house had been requisitioned by Sheikh al-Hazmi, the nephew of the Muslim Brotherhood preacher Mohammed al-Hazmi. He had curly hair and unusually for a Yemeni green eyes. Al-Hazmi remembered me from my stay in Yemeni in 2001. He laughed to see me again after such a long time and we embraced. It was proof yet again of the value of the network I had built up over the years.

He, Abdul, al-Abab and I talked late into the night about the state of jihad in Yemen. Al-Abab said lots of Somalis had travelled to Yemen to fight with the group. Eventually Hazmi retired to join his family in their quarters upstairs, but al-Abab had one more question before he would let me go.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked, gravely.

‘For what?’ I asked.

‘Will you take the oath? For al-Qaeda, for our emir Abu Basir?’

I replied I was prepared to take the oath but had certain conditions. ‘I told Sheikh Anwar I don’t accept civilian targets.’

‘We already knew this – Abdul told me,’ al-Abab replied.

I was left with no choice; I was about to become a signed-up member of al-Qaeda.

Taking his hand I made the oath: ‘I will be true to Abu Basir, Leader of the Faithful, in all that obeys the will of Allah and His messenger. I will fight Allah’s cause.’

‘
Hamdulillah!
’ al-Abab exclaimed.

I hardly slept that night – death might be around any corner. I even feared I might reveal myself to the brothers by talking in my sleep. I rose before dawn and walked out with al-Qaeda fighters to pray in the nearby mosque. As the first glimmer of dawn turned the eastern sky purple and then pink, the crack of distant mortar rounds interrupted the stillness. Yemeni military forces were bombarding the town, in one of their half-hearted attempts to retake Jaar.

The fighters hastened to the frontline, leaving me alone. Before departing they locked the heavy gates from the outside. I heard the clack of artillery fire and the roar of fighter jets overhead. Then there was the loud sucking sound of an explosion nearby, followed by a deafening roar. I could hear women and children screaming.

What if they’re targeting this building? I suddenly thought. I went up to the roof but it was too high to jump. I was trapped.

I then had a sickening realization which made the aerial bombardment pale into insignificance.

I had left my North Face backpack in Sheikh al-Abab’s car. Inside one of the pockets was a USB stick with the recording of my conversation with the CIA agent Michael back in Denmark.

I’d forgotten about it.

Game over.

I pictured my wife and kids back in Europe and wondered how they would take the news. I lay down on the floor and gazed up at the ceiling with a deep fatalism. I wished I hadn’t watched so many of those brutal execution videos.

After several hours, Sheikh al-Abab returned to the house with fighters in tow and Abdul, who looked traumatized. I tried to appear relaxed but was ready to vomit. The Sheikh smiled.

‘You forgot this in the car,’ he said, handing me the bag. When I had a moment alone to look, I found the thumb drive still inside. I could have screamed with relief.

A few minutes later it was time to move on. I jumped into the back seat of a Toyota 4 × 4 next to Abdul and a young Saudi. Al-Abab rode shotgun with the driver. After a few minutes, he turned around and told us to lean forward and stare at the floor. We were on no account to look up until told to. We drove for a few more minutes.

The car stopped and a new passenger slid in next to me. I looked up and saw the unmistakable features of Nasir al-Wuhayshi – wispy beard, small, close-set eyes under his tribal scarf, and his trademark broad grin.

‘
Salaam
,’ he said cheerfully. He had a
miswak
– a Yemeni tooth-cleaning stick which the Prophet had recommended – in the corner of his mouth.

Somehow he was slighter than I had imagined.

‘Murad, I know who you are. Anwar told me about you and I received your letter. I should tell you that Aminah is doing well. May Allah reward you for what you’ve done for her and Sheikh Anwar,’ he said.

We set off with a car full of Wuhayshi’s heavily armed bodyguards tailing us. We drove to a small farm outside Jaar, where we got out and walked across to a cornfield. Under the shade of some trees, we unpacked a meal of lamb and rice. The shade also provided some protection from drones, which could not be far away

I could not seem to eat everything in front of me. In an act of kindness, AQAP’s leader was stealthily shovelling chunks of lamb towards me rather than eat them himself. No wonder he looked so thin.

At that point Sheikh al-Abab passed on a request to Wuhayshi from the young bearded Saudi fighter, who wanted to be put on a fast track for martyrdom. Wuhayshi considered for a few moments and then demurred; there were plenty who were ahead of him in the queue and he would have to wait his turn. The young Saudi looked crestfallen. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t dreaming: a discussion over lunch of the suicide-bombing rota.

I was fascinated by Wuhayshi. He had the same softly spoken humility as his mentor, bin Laden, and exuded the same charisma. His fighters loved him and would do anything for him. No wonder people saw him as the leader-in-waiting of all al-Qaeda.

I had rolled up my sleeves to eat and Wuhayshi noticed one of my tattoos. It depicted the Norse god Thor’s hammer but could easily be mistaken for a Christian symbol. ‘Is that a cross?’ asked Wuhayshi, one eyebrow raised.

‘No,’ I replied, laughing nervously, before telling the al-Qaeda emir that I had Thor tattooed on my forearm as a youngster. I gave Wuhayshi a quick lesson in Norse mythology. Thankfully he laughed too.

In fact the tattoo did not date back to my biker days. Late the previous year I had walked into a tattoo parlour in Copenhagen and had it inked on to my forearm. It was reckless. Had a militant noticed that I had suddenly acquired Thor’s hammer I would have had some
explaining to do. Perhaps at some level I was trying to escape the strait-jacket of my cover and reassert my identity.

Wuhayshi told the others to walk to the other side of the sandy field so we could talk in private.

‘It is good you are here,’ Wuhayshi said. ‘I was about to head out of town, but I heard you were here so I delayed my trip.’

I told him I had sworn
bayat
, but as I had previously explained to Awlaki, I could not in good conscience be involved in targeting civilians.

‘I know your position. But you should know: in Islam there is no such thing as civilians when it comes to the
kuffar
. They have chosen their states and governments,’ Wuhayshi replied. That democracy thing again, I thought to myself.

There was a pause.

‘But if I could choose I’d go after military targets,’

Wuhayshi added. Wuhayshi talked passionately about one day bringing the whole of Yemen under Islamic rule. ‘The
Hadith
says Islam will be revived from Abyan,’ he said, just as Awlaki had.

Wuhaysi confirmed the Saudi peace offer that Mujeeb had told me about, but said he had rejected it out of hand.

I told him about the letter my al-Shabaab contact Ikrimah wanted to send him from his former teacher, and offered to act as a bridge between AQAP and the Somali militant group. I needed to show him I could be useful.

‘I was the one who sent Warsame to you,’ I told him.

‘Ah yes, the brother who got arrested on the sea. He was a very good brother and was always on the front. He was never scared. It is a shame the
kuffar
now have him.’

‘We are actually in touch with some of the brothers in Somalia.’

I also told him about the militant group in Malmö, Sweden, and my own desire to get even for Awlaki’s death.

He was particularly interested in the young IT student.

‘Does he speak English?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Then he can work on
Inspire
– we will arrange it,’ he replied. We
reminisced about Awlaki for a while. And then we talked about the cleric’s sixteen-year-old son – Abdulrahman – who had been killed in a drone strike
a month after his father
. I remembered him that evening in 2006 as a young boy proudly presenting his homework to his father and looking after my son, Osama.

Although the strike was targeting other fighters it had provoked controversy in the US because of Abdulrahman’s age and the fact he was an American citizen. Wuhayshi told me that Abulrahman had formally joined the group before he was killed.

I told Wuhayshi that, prior to Awlaki’s death, the cleric had requested I bring him supplies. I was referring to the fridge and hexamine briquettes. The way he replied made it clear he knew what I was talking about.

‘Should I carry on with this mission?’ I asked.

‘Yes, you should bring these things,’ Wuhayshi said.

Wuhayshi wanted me to meet AQAP’s chief bomb-maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, who he said was some 150 miles away in Azzan, deep in Shabwa province.

Azzan was a desolate town halfway between the coast and Ataq, where Anwar al-Awlaki’s son had died in the US drone attack some months previously. Al-Qaeda had seized the town a few weeks before the strike.

‘Asiri’s now the number three on the United States’ most wanted list,’ he added, with a note of satisfaction.

Al-Asiri was now in charge of overseeing the group’s overseas attacks; he would be interested in the Swedish brothers who wanted to travel to Yemen.

The bomb-maker already had one Swedish operative working for him. Anders, the PET intelligence analyst, had told me that the suspected Swedish-Yemeni mastermind of the plot against
Jyllands-Posten
in December 2010 had escaped to Yemen and was now believed to be with al-Asiri.
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Al-Asiri had sent his own brother to his death, built the underwear device that came close to bringing down flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, and constructed the so-called printer bombs. He was, put simply, among the most dangerous terrorists in the world.

To meet al-Asiri would surely reopen doors to the CIA, with a red carpet. But it would be tempting fate to travel to see him. The USB stick contained my only recording of the meeting with the CIA officer in Helsingør. If I threw it away I would also lose crucial corroborating evidence of my work for the intelligence services. But if I kept it I might not be around too much longer. I guessed the security around al-Asiri would be even tighter than that around Wuhayshi, and there was a real risk the USB would be discovered.