Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda (6 page)

The imam was an elderly man with watery eyes and a thick, powder-white beard. He spoke in a low soft voice that trailed into a whisper as he asked me about the Prophets and the Pillars of Islam. He had little Danish and Ymit translated for me. Did I accept the Five Pillars of Islam – that there is no God but God and Mohammed is His messenger, performing prayer, paying the
Zakat
(charity to the poor), fasting in the month of Ramadan and performing
Hajj
(the pilgrimage to Mecca)?

Did I accept that Jesus was not the Son of God?

I answered yes, even though the finer points of theology and doctrine were beyond my understanding.

At the end of this series of questions, I had to recite the Declaration of Faith, the
shahada
.

‘There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the messenger of God.’

There was a pause. And then the imam said, ‘You are now a Muslim. Your sins are forgiven.’

Ymit translated and then embraced me.

‘Now you are truly my brother,’ he said, his eyes glistening. ‘But you
are not really a convert, more a revert. In Islam, we believe that every person is born a Muslim because we are all created by God and there is only one God.

‘You should be circumcised,’ he said with a grin, ‘but it’s not compulsory. It’s more important that you now take a Muslim name.’

My life had undergone a momentous change. It was uplifting; I had been purged. Guilt evaporated, a fresh start beckoned.

‘I think you should be “Murad”,’ Ymit said. ‘It means “goal” or “achievement”.’

It seemed appropriate.

I did not become a strictly observant Muslim immediately. In fact, my friends had an unconventional way of celebrating. We converged on an apartment to consume several six-packs of beer. It was my first communion – Korsør style. I could always repent later, they laughed.

To begin with, the forgiving of sins, absolution through prayer, was a large part of Islam’s appeal to me. I soon learned and would cite a saying of the Prophet:

‘Suppose there is a river that flows in front of your house and you take a wash five times in it. Then would there remain any dirt and filth on you after that? Performing daily prayers five times a day is similar to that which washes away sins.’

The Koran and the sayings attributed to the Prophet were especially generous to the dedicated ‘revert’ who took his religion seriously. In the words of one such saying – or
hadith
: ‘If a servant accepts Islam and completes his Islam, Allah will record for him every good deed that he performed before [adopting Islam]; and will erase for him every evil deed that he did before.’

I did not leave the Bandidos immediately and even took several members along with me to the mosque. This did not go down well with senior members of the gang, who called me to a meeting to tell me to keep my beliefs to myself.

Samar, even though she was from a Christian family, was more accepting. She thought my conversion showed a maturity that was a welcome departure from my gang lifestyle. She did not seem to harbour any anti-Muslim feelings and we continued to make plans together.

It was – of all people – the Korsør police who inadvertently pushed me towards a much stricter adherence to my new religion.

On a glorious June evening, days after the summer solstice and with the sun still high in the sky, I joined some friends at a Kurdish restaurant in Korsør to watch the world heavyweight title fight – the bizarre bout in Las Vegas between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.

A police car passed and then came back to the restaurant. Two officers got out.

‘Morten Storm,’ one said, with a look of smugness, ‘you are under arrest in connection with the attempted robbery of a bank.’

I had nothing to do with the break-in and thought they were just trying to annoy me. Expecting that I would be back at the restaurant in a matter of minutes, I shouted to my friends: ‘Keep the beers cold.’

I was wrong. I never tasted the beer and never saw Tyson bite off part of Holyfield’s ear.

Instead I spent the night in a police waiting room, studying the bare walls and reflecting on my situation. Once again, just as I seemed to be getting ahead, sensing progress and even stability, my past and my reputation had pulled me back.

It’s never going to end, I thought. They’re just going to keep coming after me. So long as I am in Korsør I’ll be a marked man, rotating between life in a gang on the outside to life in a much worse gang inside. I don’t want to spend half my life in prison.

The next morning, waiting for yet another court appearance, I said to myself, very simply: ‘It’s over.’

It was time to change my life, not just its trappings, before I was dragged into a never-ending cycle of court appearances, jail sentences and attempts at rehabilitation. I was remanded in custody for ten days. I knew several Bandidos who had been involved in the bank job but refused to give names. Loyalty still mattered. But my brief stay in Køge prison was a landmark because it reinforced the values and self-discipline I was beginning to learn as a new Muslim.

My first act was symbolic. I declared myself a Muslim to the prison authorities and refused to eat pork. Then I met a fellow convert, Suleiman, who had a profound and immediate impact on me. Suleiman, with his shaven head, looked like Bruce Willis. He was inside on
weapons charges, but that did not prevent him from lecturing me about Islam and membership of the Bandidos being irreconcilable.

‘You have to choose,’ he said one afternoon as we wandered through the exercise yard. ‘Allah cannot accept you as a true Muslim if you are going to drink and do drugs and go through your life without good intentions. The heart is the sanctuary of Allah; so do not allow anyone to dwell therein except Allah.’

Suleiman’s words rang true. It was time to put the Bandidos behind me. Islam was already beginning to change me, not as a weekly or even daily rite but as a belief system that would influence and soon dictate my every action.

A Palestinian friend had given me a key ring with ‘Allah’ inscribed on it; I treasured it. I began keeping the Koran in the highest place in the room, out of respect.

Another inmate I met in Køge was a Palestinian Dane named Mustapha Darwich Ramadan. His trade was armed robbery in the cause of jihad. He was in solitary confinement and I could hear him praying. I managed to slip him some fruit and we were able to talk briefly. He would later resurface in one of the most brutal videos to emerge in Iraq.

No charges were brought against me over the robbery and I walked out of Køge determined to leave Denmark as soon as possible – and to avoid Bandidos members. Some could not accept that I had left the gang and even suspected that I was planning to join the Hell’s Angels. I felt like I was on the run; I kept a loaded gun on me at all times, moving from place to place.

Suleiman was released from jail soon after. His wife’s family were Pakistanis and had settled in central England. He was planning to join them – and his old van represented my escape route to a new life.

On an overcast early summer day we set off for Calais and then crossed the English Channel. The white cliffs of Dover – more a dirty eggshell – invited me towards a new adventure. I was leaving behind some angry bikers and a chaotic love life. I had discovered that Samar, whose sex drive was apparently insatiable, had been less than angelic while I was behind bars. I had even begun seeing Vibeke again but had soon realized that I wanted Samar back. She had visited me during my
brief stay in Køge jail and we had talked about Islam. She even said that she was ready to become a Muslim.

A job, somewhere to live, new horizons – and then I would call her. She had promised she would join me.

My new home was in Milton Keynes in England. A town created on an architect’s master plan, it was a bland collection of housing estates surrounded by countryside. Suleiman’s in-laws helped me find accommodation and a warehouse job. For the first time in my life – guided by Islam – I saved a little money. I hoped Samar would see that I’d turned a corner and come to live with me.

Every day Suleiman prodded me towards being a conscientious Muslim. I was a project; he was the proselytizer. He encouraged me to pray five times a day and wear an Islamic cap.

‘The companions of the Prophet Mohammed were never seen without their heads covered,’ he explained to me one day as we drove to one of the mosques that were popping up across the English Midlands.

Soon I was praying on my own. I had the zeal of a convert, soaking up the customs and prescriptions of Islam. I felt a sense of stability I had never had before.

Several weeks after arriving I plucked up the courage to call Samar and ask her to come over. I hoped I could sell my new setting, a fresh start.

I was not normally given to nerves, but as I jammed pound coins into a public phone I realized my palms were sweating and my stomach turning.

After a few tones she picked up.

‘Darling, it’s Murad, er, Morten. How are you?’

She was subdued. I pressed on.

‘I have a good job. I’m making some money. And I’ve got a decent place to live. Milton Keynes isn’t very exciting, but it’s not far from London.’

I sounded like a telemarketer. There was silence at the other end. I soldiered on.

‘I have enough to plan a good wedding for us, and a honeymoon. I know people here who can help organize a proper Muslim wedding ceremony.’

She cut me off and poured pure venom down the line.

‘Fuck you and fuck Islam. I don’t want to live in England and I don’t want to live with you.’

I reeled.

‘Samar …’

‘Don’t call me again.’ The line went dead.

I stared through the grimy glass panes. Without any explanation the engagement was over – for good. I stumbled into the street. My first attempt to build something with someone had crumbled to dust. I was on my own.

There was a call from across the street.

‘
As salaam aleikum
.’

A middle-aged Pakistani recognized me as a fellow Muslim, thanks to my cap. His name was G. M. Butt and he owned a kiosk near a cinema complex called The Point.

We had exchanged greetings on my occasional visits to his little shop. He was a man of good intentions, who saw pleasing Allah as one of his duties on earth.

I told him a bit about the phone call. He was sympathetic.

‘Brother! Come and help me and I will try to help you. I am not the young man I used to be – I need help with all the boxes and deliveries.’

So my fianceé had rejected me because of my religion, but a man who scarcely knew me had embraced me for it.

G.M. was a good man. Soon I told him how I cried at night, my longing for Samar. One day I asked him for a day off so that I could go to London and pray.

London’s most famous mosque is on the edge of Regent’s Park, set among the rose gardens and graceful Edwardian terraces. Since its construction in the 1970s, largely with Saudi money, it has somehow blended into this leafy corner of London. The gold of its dome flickers through the plane trees; the call to prayer wafts across the traffic.

I went to the mosque’s bookshop. Perhaps if I sent Samar some books about Islam she would understand better. The attendant directed me towards the office, or
dawa
, where a tall and venerable Saudi with dark skin and a long salt-and-pepper beard greeted me.

‘
Masha’Allah
[God has willed it],’ he exclaimed, delighted that a European convert had come to his mosque.

He introduced himself as Mahmud al-Tayyib.

‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

I told him that I had recently arrived from Denmark and had converted to Islam just a few months earlier.

‘Are you married?’

I launched into my sad tale about Samar, how she had promised to join me, my plans for a Muslim wedding.

Tayyib was sympathetic. In his gentle way he was also persuasive. Like Suleiman he had a passion for conveying his faith. He was a man of deep learning.

‘Would you like to study Islam? Why not travel to a Muslim country?’

It was a soft but earnest sell.

‘I can get you to Yemen. It’s the easiest Muslim country to get a visa to study – do you have a passport?’

I did. But I had never heard of Yemen. And I had little notion of what Tayyib regarded as the authentic expression of Islam. He was one of the many well-funded envoys sent around the world by wealthy Saudi interests to bring Muslims into the Wahhabi fold. Ever since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Saudis had spent lavishly promoting their ‘authentic’ brand of Islam in the face of the challenge posed by Ayatollah Khomeini. To the puritanical Wahhabis – Sunni fundamentalists – the Shia were heretics guilty of polluting Islam.

Of this battle for the soul of Islam, being waged in mosques around the world, I knew little. But I was about to become one of its foot soldiers.

‘There is a seminary in Yemen. It is remote and it is primitive by European standards,’ Tayyib continued. ‘But it is pure. Many foreigners seeking truth in Islam go there. It is called Dammaj. I can organize a plane ticket for you and people to look after you when you arrive.’

His eyes were sparkling.

‘The imam at Dammaj is a great scholar, Sheikh Muqbil. He is returning Yemen to the true path of the Sunnah. But you should know that the day is long and you will have to get a grasp of Arabic.’

I was excited. I loved to travel and the thought of visiting Arabia had been beyond my wildest imagination. Now I was being offered a return
ticket, a place to stay and a chance to become immersed in my new faith.

I accepted Tayyib’s offer and said it would take me a couple of weeks to wrap up my affairs in England. He was delighted.

‘But don’t become a Sufi or a Shia,’ he said with a wry grin, ‘and don’t shave any more.’