Normally big teams of agents are sent to investigate an attack of the magnitude of the USS Cole bombing, but I was told that I could pick only three people from the New York office to go with me initially; the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Barbara K. Bodine, was limiting the number of country clearances she was approving. (Unless the United States is at war, the State Department can limit the number of U.S. personnel allowed into a foreign country.) My superiors assured me that more would be allowed soon, but that in the meantime we should go ahead and start investigating.
I picked three colleagues from my I-49 squad: Steve Bongardt, George Crouch, and an NYPD detective stationed with the JTTF, Tom Ward. Steve was an obvious choice, as he was my partner on most of my cases at the time, and we worked well together. We were also close friends and spent a lot of our free time together, even double-dating. It is common for agents to spend their free time with other agents. You feel a kinship, having shared many of the same life-and-death experiences, but beyond that, because of the classified nature of the job, they’re the only people you can discuss your work with outside the office.
Steve is a former navy pilot, and, as we’d be working with the navy on the investigation, this background would be useful. He has that Top Gun mentality of navy pilots, which allows him to think outside the box and take on issues that others might be too timid to touch. This attitude later placed Steve at the forefront of the FBI’s pre-9/11 battle to break down the lack of intelligence sharing between the FBI and the CIA. He would not just go along with restrictions that damaged national security. It was in his nature to fight back. This showed itself on every level: despite having pulled a muscle in his back a week before the departure for Yemen, which made walking and sitting difficult, he refused to stay home.
George Crouch is a first-class investigator and has a great sense of humor. When working overseas on operations in hostile countries, you work, eat, and sleep in close proximity to your colleagues. You’re with them twenty-four hours a day, for months on end. A big consideration when choosing a team is who you’ll get along with. If the people don’t get along, it can harm an investigation. George is a former marine captain (he was in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps), and so he, too, would know how to work with the navy. The most important things in George’s life are his wife, Laura, and his family, and I’ve always had a special respect for him. He and Laura became close friends of Heather’s and mine.
Tom was assigned from the New York City Police Department to the JTTF; he is street-smart, with lots of investigative skills, and he pays close attention to detail. I never saw non-FBI members on the JTTF as outsiders—I include everyone from NYPD to CIA officials—so I didn’t think twice about taking Tom.
We only had a few hours before we had to leave for Yemen, and that time would be spent at the office, planning and preparing for the investigation. There was no time to go back home and pack for the trip, so I’d have to travel in what I was wearing and get anything I needed from stores near the FBI’s office or in Yemen. The command center was in full crisis mode: analysts were collecting data; agents were digging up old files on Yemen; allied intelligence services around the world were exchanging information; and senior officials were gathered on the main platform, discussing the case. As I finished preparing, I remembered that I had a date with Heather that evening. I tried calling her to tell her I’d have to rearrange, but I couldn’t reach her; she was at school, teaching a class. I left it to the ASAC’s secretary to tell her that not only did I have to cancel the date, but I didn’t know when I’d return.
An NYPD detective stationed with the JTTF drove Steve, George, Tom, and me to Andrews Air Force Base, and we met the team from the WFO there. A hostage rescue team (HRT)—an elite FBI SWAT team—came as well to provide protection. We couldn’t leave immediately, however, as we had to wait a couple of hours for our country clearances to be approved by Ambassador Bodine before we could take off. As we waited, news came through that there had been another terrorist attack in Yemen: a grenade had been thrown at the British embassy in Sanaa, blowing up one of its electric generators.
Once the clearances came we boarded a military cargo plane loaded with vehicles, weapons, and equipment. There were no seats, only netting on the side that we could rest on. The mood on the flight was anxious, as the FBI had no operational relationship with the Yemenis and we really didn’t know if we’d be welcomed or attacked. It was also possible that al-Qaeda might be stronger in Yemen than we thought, and that the USS Cole attack was a ploy to trap more agents in Yemen and then kill the new arrivals—us. In our investigation into the East African embassy bombings, we learned from interrogating one al-Qaeda member that this was a not uncommon maneuver.
We were also aware of problems that Yemeni officials had with the United States. Not long before the attack, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh had said that if he shared a border with Israel, he would engage in jihad against the country because of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. He went on to lambaste the United States for supporting Israel—so it didn’t seem that we were heading into friendly territory. That’s why we had the HRT with us: they would provide extra firepower if something went wrong. With Somalia in the back of our minds—the image, from 1993, of U.S. soldiers overwhelmed by hostile fighters in Mogadishu and dragged through the streets and killed—we were determined not to go down without a fight if something happened.
No one was in the mood to talk much on the plane. I tried sleeping, but there was too much going through my head, so I reviewed the information we had on Yemen.
More than twenty hours later, after a refueling stop in Germany, our plane descended in Yemen. Looking at the country for the first time out of the plane window, I saw that it was even more sparsely populated than I had imagined. As we taxied on the runway and slowed down to a stop, we saw that we were surrounded by what appeared to be Yemeni Special Forces. Soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms had trained their AK-47s on us. Alongside them were military vehicles and jeeps with their machine guns pointed at us.
At first no one moved. We had no idea what was happening and didn’t want to trigger any reaction. Eventually, after what may have been a very long fifteen minutes, the U.S. defense attaché stationed in the country, Colonel Newman, came aboard. “What the hell is going on?” someone demanded. He said that he was unsure but that they were “working on it.” In the meantime, he said, the Yemenis told him that we should put all our weapons in a big duffel bag and give it to them.
That didn’t sound right. Walking unarmed into a country where U.S. sailors had just been killed was not something we were prepared to do, especially given the “welcome” we appeared to be receiving. The HRT bluntly refused. Meanwhile, I told George and Steve that I was going to try to find out what was going on. From the open door of the plane I picked out the Yemeni official who appeared to be in charge. Although armed, he was dressed in civilian clothes and was carrying a walkie-talkie, and he appeared to be issuing orders to the soldiers.
I stepped off the plane and walked toward him. I was still wearing my New York fall clothes, and it was like walking into a sauna. Sweat trickled down my forehead. “As-Salamu Alaykum,” I said.
“Wa Alaykum as-Salam,” he replied.
“It’s hot. Are you thirsty?” I asked, continuing in Arabic and pausing to wipe some of the sweat off my brow. His face registered surprise, and he looked me up and down.
“Yes,” he said slowly, nodding at the same time.
“I have some bottles of water for you and your soldiers,” I said, waving to George to bring them down to me from the plane. I handed him the bottles.
“Is this American water?” he asked.
“Yes.” Apparently American bottled water is a luxury in Yemen. The official distributed the bottles. Some soldiers drank the water, while others instead put it in their bags, perhaps to take it home to show their families.
That broke the tension, and a few Yemeni soldiers smiled. Some even said “thank you�
� in English.
I asked the Yemeni: “What’s going on? Why have you surrounded our plane?”
“Don’t worry, it’s only for your protection.”
“We appreciate that,” I told him, “but if someone is going to attack us, they will attack from outside, so your weapons need to face outward, not at us.”
“No, no,” he replied, “this is the best way.”
“Well, at least lower the weapons,” I said, “because otherwise an accident is going to happen and none of us wants that.” He ordered the soldiers to lower their weapons.
The Aden airport was old and basic, with just a single runway, two halls (one for regular passengers and one with chairs and couches for “VIP” passengers), and a few offices for administrative staff and security officials. We had equipment, supplies, and vehicles that we wanted to unload from the plane; the Yemenis, at the same time, wanted to inspect and approve everything that came off. They wrote down every detail, right down to the serial numbers of our weapons. We were stiff and exhausted from the long and uncomfortable flight and had little patience for all this red tape.
The airport was also swarming with Yemeni officials: all of the different national and local law enforcement, intelligence, and military agencies were represented. There were airport security personnel; the military; the ministry of the interior’s internal security force; the intelligence service, called the Political Security Organization (PSO); the regular police; and Aden security services. It appeared that none had ultimate jurisdiction and that all intended to monitor us.
Overlapping jurisdictions and blurred boundaries between security agencies are deliberate in some countries. Having one agency means that there’s a potential power base that may dominate the country. The presence of many jurisdictions, however, comes with its own problems: agencies spend their time fighting turf wars with each other, with the president of the country serving as the arbitrator. While such a situation may prevent one group from launching a coup, it doesn’t help outsiders trying to work with the different agencies. Every time we needed to do something in the airport we needed to coordinate it separately with each of them.
I found myself acting as the mediator between our side and the Yemenis and managed to establish rapport with them. I told them that we would give them any information they wanted and that we had nothing to hide. We were simply trying to investigate what had happened to our ship and wanted to work with them in the investigation. They appreciated this straightforwardness and the fact that we wanted to work with them. They also liked that I spoke their language.
I was told that my last name, Soufan, was a “Sada” name in Yemen. Sada is the plural of sayyid, which means “prestigious” and connotes social status. According to the Yemenis, Soufan is the family name of people descended from the Prophet. Some government ministers apparently also had the name, and the Yemenis at the airport eagerly inquired whether my family was from Yemen. “Perhaps a long time ago,” I answered, wishing neither to lie nor surrender a useful advantage. In tight situations people often want to find someone they can relate to, and I was happy to be that person for the Yemenis.
I also showed the Yemenis that I understood their perspective and told them that I knew that they had to square the image of American officials “invading” their country with jeeps and weapons with their local population, many of whom were very anti-American. They told me that earlier in the day marines had set up a base camp and (as is their custom) planted an American flag on the ground, which had upset the locals.
I later found out from a Yemeni friend that the harsh treatment we received when we first landed was due partly to a humiliation the Yemenis had suffered the day before. According to the Yemenis, when the marines’ Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) landed hours after the attack, the Yemenis surrounded their plane, as had happened with us. The marines exited the plane in their Humvees and in a quick projection of force surrounded the Yemenis and took over the airport—without even firing a shot. It was an embarrassment for the Yemenis to have had their own airport seized so quickly.
Many of the Yemenis I dealt with sympathized with our loss. Especially among the law enforcement and intelligence community, there were those who shared our desire to seek justice for the murdered sailors. Many of the officials and officers I met at the airport—from the ministry of the interior, from state security—remained friends during my time in Aden. Whenever a U.S. plane landed in Aden, if I was free, I went with either the military attaché or a State Department representative to help smooth the entry. Many of the friends I made in Yemen then I still consider my friends today.
While I was dealing with the red tape, the HRT remained by the plane and monitored our gear to make sure that things weren’t being tampered with or taken. Everyone else sat on the side in the main terminal waiting for our entry to be sorted out. It took a couple of hours of sometimes tense negotiation to determine what we could and couldn’t take off the plane. The Yemenis insisted that we could not take certain vehicles and weapons. We didn’t really have a choice but to comply: it was their country, and the State Department officials at the airport said that we had to accept the Yemenis’ restrictions.
Our long guns had to be left on the plane, too, the State Department representatives at the airport told us. These M-4 machine guns and shotguns weren’t the weapons we routinely carried—we used handguns for that purpose—but we’d planned to keep them in the car in case we needed them. We tried negotiating but were told that Ambassador Bodine had insisted we didn’t need them. “The ambassador said that the Yemenis will protect you,” one State Department representative offered unconvincingly. We were unhappy, but, again, we didn’t have a choice. Because we needed to leave many things behind, some HRT squad members stayed behind as well to guard the plane and our equipment until it could return to the United States.
When we were finally ready to leave the airport, the State Department arranged pickup trucks for our luggage and equipment and a bus for us. We loaded up, and Yemeni soldiers climbed on top of the trucks to guard them. A convoy of Yemeni Special Forces in 4x4 jeeps with Dushkas—12.7 mm submachine guns—pulled up and said they would ride alongside us. The Yemenis told us to get into the bus and the convoy would head to the Mövenpick.
At this point I was exhausted. I was also hot, and the air-conditioned bus was appealing. But at the same time I didn’t want to get in it because if any problems arose, I wanted to be available to work with the Yemenis. I assumed that they would appreciate my gesture of riding with them rather than in the bus. As everyone else was filing into the bus, I started climbing to the top of one of pickup trucks.The soldiers were in midconversation when my head came up over the side. “You’re meant to be in the bus,” one told me flatly.
“No, I’m not,” I replied. “I’ll be riding on top with you.” I said it with certainty, and that apparently convinced them not to argue. They shrugged their shoulders and resumed talking to each other.
A few seconds later I heard someone else climbing up to the top of the truck. It was George. He had seen me and didn’t want me to be alone. The Yemenis glanced at him, looked at me, and turned back to talk to each other.
With everyone else inside the buses and our equipment in the trucks, the convoy set off. I have always disliked traveling in official convoys in foreign countries. My reaction is the same whether I’m given a bulletproof limousine with a police escort or a military convoy. While some may enjoy the luxury and sense of importance convoys provide, the attention always makes me feel unsafe, because it lets potential attackers know exactly where I am. Often when I traveled to foreign countries, I asked local authorities to provide a discreet pickup rather than lights and sirens.
As the convoy moved along, I focused on the other cars on the road. The road out of the airport passed a large construction site where a new airport was being built. George and I both did a doubletake when we saw the giant billboard that had been erected next to the site. It read: “Binladi
n.”
The sign, we realized, referred to the company that was building the new airport—the Saudi Binladin Group, one of the biggest construction companies in the Middle East. But to George and me, it was as if we were being told who was behind the attack and who we were looking for.
As a safety precaution, we moved at the speed of the other traffic, and the Yemenis tried hard to ensure that we never had to stop. The jeeps traveling ahead of us cleared the road. For most of the journey the system worked, and we passed through intersections and roundabouts without slowing down. But as we got closer to the Mövenpick, we encountered heavy traffic at one roundabout and the jeeps were unable to clear the road in time. As we slowed, one of the soldiers on our pickup truck started furiously signaling with his fingers at cars. George’s face registered shock. “I can’t believe what he’s doing,” he said to me. At first I didn’t understand George’s complaint. A couple of seconds later it dawned on me. In the Middle East the signal to slow down involves putting the tips of your fingers together. I was familiar with it from my childhood in Lebanon. But in the United States that gesture could easily be mistaken for a rude one.
The Mövenpick was ringed with Yemeni security officials who checked the credentials of everyone entering. U.S. Marines were stationed on the roof and inside the hotel. While it was comforting to see that the hotel was protected, it also reminded us that we were entering hostile territory and that our lives were under threat.
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The Black Banners Page 19
