Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda (60 page)

Read Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda Online

Authors: Morten Storm,Paul Cruickshank,Tim Lister

Invoice for one of the MI5-authorized money transfers to Somali terrorist Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame.

Invoice for chemical gloves also purchased for Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame.

Visa stamps for a Lebanon Mission in 2007.

Signing contract to develop Masinga Dam.

Confiscation notice for Hexamine, signed by Jesper ahead of the May 2012 mission to Yemen.

Hong Kong and China visa stamps on my trip to see Abdul there in May 2012.

Email from my CIA handlers Jed and George before one of my trips to Vienna.

Soren’s quad-bike insurance disclaimer.

Notes

1. Desert Road

‘Come to Yemen … see you’:
This is my recollection. This is one of the few emails quoted in the book I did not save. Unless otherwise stated all emails, text messages and recorded conversations quoted in the book are reproduced verbatim, including spelling and grammatical errors.

met two of the hijackers:
The 9/11 Commission said, in its final report, that it had ‘been unable to learn enough about Aulaqi’s relationship with Hazmi and Mihdhar [two of the 9/11 hijackers] to reach a conclusion’ (p. 221), and that its attempts to locate and interview the cleric had been unsuccessful (footnote 35, p. 517).

‘The ballot … your ranks’:
‘Salutations to al Shabaab of Somalia’, Awlaki blog posting, 20 December 2008.

‘I pray … or not’:
Brooks Egerton, ‘Imam’s emails to Fort Hood suspect tame compared with online rhetoric’,
Dallas Morning News
, 28 November 2009.

‘the blame … a few dollars’:
Ibid.

suicide attack:
The four South Korean tourists were killed in the suicide bombing in Hadramaut on 15 March 2009; ‘False Foundation? AQAP, Tribes and Ungoverned Spaces in Yemen’, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, October 2011.

soliciting prostitutes:
Chitra Ragavan, ‘The Imam’s Very Curious Story’,
US News and World Report
, 13 June 2004.

2. Gangs, Girls, God

third-largest illegal business:
Klaus von Lampe, ‘The Nicotine Racket. Trafficking in Untaxed Cigarettes: A Case Study of Organized Crime in Germany’: guest lecture given at the Institute of Criminology, University of Oslo, Norway, 6 May 1999.

killing one:
Edward Winterhalder,
Out in Bad Standings: Inside the Bandidos Motorcycle Club
, Blockhead City, 2005, chap. 24.

I learned … God’s messenger:
For one of many accounts of this event, see John Miller and Aaron Kenedi,
Inside Islam: The Faith, the People, and the Conflicts of the World’s Fastest-Growing Religion
, Da Capo Press, 2002.

‘Proclaim … blood’:
Koran, al-Alaq, 96:1–2.

‘Allah is with us’:
Koran, al-Tawba, 9:40.

‘Our Lord is God’:
Koran, al-Haj, 22:39–40.

4. Arabia

what was driving:
For more on Sheikh Muqbil and the Salafist world-view, see Bernard Haykel, ‘The Salafis in Yemen at a Crossroads: An Obituary of Shaykh Muqbil al-Wadi’i of Dammaj (d. 1422/2001)’,
Jemen-Report
, 2 (October 2002); Bernard Haykel, ‘On the Nature of Salafi Thought and Action’, in Roel Meijer et al.,
Global Salafism
, Columbia University Press, 2009; Quintan Wiktorowicz, ‘Anatomy of the Salafi Movement’,
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
, 29:3 (2006), 207–39.

US authorities … year before:
United States of America v. Clifford Allen Newman
, Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, 17 August 2010.

5. Londonistan

‘Had it issued … many a contradiction’:
Koran, An-Nisā’, 4:82.

Master’s degree:
‘Profile: Zacarias Moussaoui’, BBC, 25 April 2006.

What he … Chechen war:
Richard Willing, ‘Westernized kid grows into 9/11 suspect’,
USA Today
, 25 June 2002; ‘British have file on Moussaoui’,
USA Today
, 13 June 2002.

one of al-Qaeda’s camps:
Indictment:
United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui
, US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 11 December 2001.

Russian rockets rained down:
Amelia Gentleman, ‘Russian rockets hit Grozny market’,
Guardian
, 21 October 1999.

He had … ‘twentieth hijacker’:
Indictment:
United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui
, US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 11 December 2001.

‘shoe-bomber’:
United States v. Richard Colvin Reid
, US District Court of Massachusetts, 16 January 2002.

6. Death to America

issued a fatwa:
Noorhaidi Hasan,
Laskar Jihad: Islam, Militancy, and the Quest for Identity in Post-New Order Indonesia
, Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2006.

‘Fight in the cause … not aggressors’:
Koran, al-Baqarah, 2:190.

‘must be fulfilled … their minds’:
The words of Ahmad Yahya Ibn Muhammad al-Najm in response to requests for guidance from Salafis wanting to fight in the Moluccas. Al-Najm was a member of the Saudi senior Ulama committee. See Hasan,
Laskar Jihad
, p. 117.

In September 2006 … the country:
Elisabeth Arnsdorf Haslund, ‘Titalt: Mit TATP var ikke farligt’,
Berlingske Tidende
(Denmark), 13 September 2007; ‘Denmark convicts men in bomb plot’, BBC, 23 November 2007.

CALES:
The Centre for Arabic Language and Eastern Studies at the University of Science and Technology in Sana’a.

USS
Cole
:
‘USS
Cole
fast facts’, CNN, 18 September 2013; Michael Sniffen, ‘FBI: Plastic Explosives Used in
Cole
Bombing’, ABC News, 1 November 2000.

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