A U.S. Marine was standing nearby with a sniffer dog. Knowing that Yemenis in general are scared of dogs, I asked her to come with us. We went around the partition and saw a Yemeni man sitting at a desk monitoring cameras and listening to an earpiece. The Yemeni saw the dog, which snarled helpfully, and the man jumped onto the desk, shaking. When the dog started barking, he jumped off the desk and ran away from the listening post.
We looked at the cameras and examined the wires and saw that the Yemenis had set up monitoring devices in quite a few of our rooms. As we were looking at them, some other Yemeni officials ran into the area, but before they could speak, I angrily asked: “What is going on here? Why are you monitoring us? There are going to be problems.”
“No, no,” one officer responded, “this is for your own protection.”
“These ones,” I said, gesturing to the wires and cameras monitoring us inside the hotel, “aren’t. Outside the hotel is fine. But inside our rooms is not. Get rid of them.”
Convincing the Yemenis that the attack on the Cole was in fact a terrorist action and not a malfunction of the ship was a kind of game. We didn’t think they believed their official story—no intelligent person could, we thought—but it was their country and their rules, so we had to play along.
We took senior Yemeni officials representing all their intelligence and security agencies to the Cole. The delegation included the head of the PSO in Aden, Hussein Ansi; the head of President Saleh’s security team, Hamoud Naji; the chief of staff of the Yemeni military; and the governor of Aden. Navy engineers demonstrated that the damage done to the ship—the blast hole clearly went inward, not outward—meant that the explosion had to have been caused by an external attack. Sailors then recounted what they saw moments before the blast: the boat and the men on board. There was little to argue about, and when the Yemenis saw the blood, the bodies, and the pain on the faces of the sailors, they seemed genuinely touched, and expressed their sympathies.
We went directly from the ship to our hotel for a meeting with the Yemenis, and we were expecting a positive discussion as to how we could move forward with the investigation. We all gathered in a big conference room. We sat across from each other, Americans on one side, Yemenis on the other. John faced Naji, and I faced Ansi and translated for our side. Ansi was the first to speak. He was a short, mustached man with salt-and-pepper hair, and he liked to assume a pious air. What seemed to be an involuntary smirk often appeared on his face when he spoke. It gave the impression that he thought he was the most intelligent person in the room and that he was secretly laughing at everyone else.
“After reviewing the evidence,” Ansi began, “we believe that the attack on the Cole was in fact a terrorist attack.” I translated. Everyone nodded. “However—” He began again, and then he paused, and the smirk appeared for a few seconds. “The people responsible for the attack are dead, they blew themselves up, and so there is nothing to investigate. The case is closed.” I was initially too stunned to translate. I couldn’t believe my ears. Was he serious? I started arguing back without pausing to translate for the others. It was a struggle for me to mask the anger I felt.
“As you know, if a terrorist attack occurs, there are not only those who conducted the attack. There are also the people who facilitated the attack. Then there are the bomb makers, the providers of the safe houses, and the people who helped them buy the boat and the explosives. There is therefore still a lot to investigate. The case is far from closed.”
John and the others didn’t know what was happening. I was the only Arabic speaker among our team in the room. But my colleagues knew me well enough to realize from my tone of voice and facial expressions that whatever was being said, it wasn’t good.
After I replied to Ansi, I translated the exchange for the others. There was anger on our side and John especially was agitated. “Now look here,” John said, “We are here to work as a team with you. But you should know that this is something we are very serious about. We are not messing around. We want to get to the bottom of this. And we won’t leave until we figure it out. We would, however, like to work with you.” I translated. Ansi nodded but said nothing. The meeting was adjourned.
As I was leaving the room, Naji approached me. “Can I speak to you?” he said. I stepped to the side with him. “Don’t worry,” he said, touching my arm, as if trying to calm and reassure me. “Everything will get done, just have patience.” I felt relieved. As the head of Saleh’s security detail, he was the president’s personal envoy to the meeting. If he said things would get done, they would.
Naji remained true to his word. That night General Ghalib al-Qamish, the head of the PSO and Ansi’s superior, came to Aden from Sanaa. John and I went straight to meet him. Qamish is a small, skinny, bald man who looks like a Yemeni version of Gandhi.
“We can work together,” were Qamish’s first words to us. He then said: “I understand why you are in Yemen and the importance of your investigation. At the same time, you have to understand the sensitivities of Yemenis.” He explained that some viewed our presence as an invasion, and that there was anger toward the United States for its support of Israel against the Palestinians. He made it clear that he didn’t agree with this hostility to us but was just explaining the situation.
Qamish was knowledgeable about al-Qaeda. When the PSO was responsible for utilizing Islamists against the South during the civil war, he was one of the key players. Yemen was a country where things couldn’t be viewed in black and white but shades of gray. Whatever Qamish’s role in the past in dealing with Islamists, during the Cole investigation, with us, he was one of the good guys, and we were glad he was at the top. We agreed that we would primarily deal with him rather than Ansi.
With the Yemenis, when negotiating for access to evidence and witnesses, it was often a question of persistence. We had experienced similar problems when working elsewhere overseas, so we knew how to handle it: we needed to remain polite but be firm. And we needed to make it clear that we would not back down.
One of the first things we had done on arriving in Yemen was to ask the Yemenis for their harbor surveillance video from the time of the attack. As we watched the tape it was clear that the Yemenis had tampered with it—the time stamp and certain frames were cut out. I told Qamish that we’d been given a doctored tape and that we would like the original; he got it for us. The full tape didn’t show us much more, so it didn’t make sense that the Yemenis had edited it. We deduced that they were trying to waste our time or test us in some way.
FBI director Louis Freeh was aware of the problems we were having in Yemen and decided to fly to the country to help move the investigation forward. At the airport and again at the Mövenpick, we briefed him and the senior officials accompanying him. We then took the director to see President Saleh.
For security purposes, the presidential palace is up in the hills overlooking Aden, far from the general population. As we drove up the winding road to the palace, we saw down below us beautiful virgin beaches and bays. Great for scuba diving, I thought to myself.
President Saleh greeted us at the palace. He was shorter than I had expected and very reserved. The visit was mostly a matter of protocol: Director Freeh was coming to show President Saleh that the United States was serious about the investigation, and Saleh, in turn, was meeting him to show that Yemen would cooperate. The meeting started with a statement from President Saleh in which he said that it had yet to be determined who was responsible for the terrorist attack. He added that the weapons used in the attack were made in the United States or Israel. (The Yemenis were still keen at that point to blame Mossad.) And then, in a bizarre shift, Saleh added Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi to the mix, claiming that he was getting involved in Yemen’s affairs. Freeh politely sidestepped Saleh’s comments, saying it was too early to determine where the weapons had come from and that the United States was eager to work alongside the Yemenis and investigate the attack. He added that the United States would be the “jun
ior partner” and that the Yemenis would take the lead. This pleased President Saleh because Yemen’s competence was acknowledged. President Saleh responded by saying that the Yemenis would fully cooperate with us, and he confirmed that John O’Neill should deal directly with Qamish.
Freeh went next to visit the Cole. He spoke to the sailors, listened to what they had to say, and promised to track down those responsible. We returned to the Mövenpick to discuss the investigation, gathering in John’s room. Director Freeh sat on a chair, John and I on the bed, and a couple of FBI officials on the desk, while everyone else leaned against the walls. The first question the director had was whether he should hold a press conference. A few people worried that it would upset the Yemenis by suggesting that the United States was taking charge. After everyone gave their views, the director turned to me and said, “Ali, what do you think?”
I was surprised to be asked—there were far more senior FBI officials for him to consult. I told him that because he had already had a successful meeting with President Saleh, there could be no harm in holding a press conference to announce that progress had been made. If anything, it would make the Yemenis look good. He agreed.
Immediately after Director Freeh’s visit, we met again with Qamish to discuss practical issues. We agreed that a joint committee with U.S. and Yemeni officials would be formed to run the investigation. We agreed to establish rules that both U.S. and Yemeni investigation teams would abide by. As always, this was crucial: we needed the rules of engagement to be binding by U.S. law if we ever wanted to prosecute anyone using evidence and statements collected in Yemen. The main negotiation for these rules took place between David Kelley and a Yemeni judge. Naji represented the Yemeni intelligence community and President Saleh; Ambassador Bodine represented the State Department; and John O’Neill, the FBI. Kelley had negotiated a similar agreement with the East African governments in 1998.
The judge was unfriendly from the start. He looked at things from a political perspective that was tainted by his negative views of the United States rather than from a legal perspective. We repeatedly had to explain to him that we had legal requirements to be met. The idea that people being questioned needed to be read the Miranda warning was a foreign concept to the Yemenis.
Kelley was clearly surprised by some of the things the judge said. He expected higher standards from someone representing the Yemeni judiciary. He shot me surprised looks as I translated what the judge was saying. Most of the pressure during the negotiation was on me. As a case agent who was also translating, I found myself required to mediate between the two sides.
The judge at times got annoyed with me, thinking that I was creating difficulties for him. He didn’t seem to understand that Kelley’s demands were U.S. legal requirements. At one point he angrily said to me, “You’re working with them,” as if I were not an American, and was inventing problems for Yemen. Other times, he tried to insult me, and I sensed that he was hoping I would get angry so that new problems—distractions from the main issues being discussed—would arise. I refused to engage him.
Our major success in the negotiation was securing an agreement that all suspects we questioned jointly would be read an Arabic version of the Miranda warning. This meant that any testimony gained would be admissible in U.S. court. We also established procedures for obtaining access to any leads the Yemenis found. A point that was problematic for us, and which the Yemenis refused to back down on, was their demand that no one be extradited from Yemen to the United States. Any trials or sentencing would take place in Yemen, they insisted, claiming that that was in the Yemeni constitution. Only suspects we caught outside Yemen could be taken back to the United States.
We didn’t trust the Yemeni justice system or its government to keep al-Qaeda terrorists locked up, and we also strongly believed that those with American blood on their hands should be prosecuted in the United States, but politically we had to accept these rules. Our fears about doing so were realized years later when, after the terrorists had been caught and prosecuted, they “escaped” from Yemeni jails, and were eventually pardoned by President Saleh.
Another sticking point was how the interrogation of suspects would work. The Yemenis said that only their officials could talk to Yemeni suspects and that we wouldn’t be allowed to question anyone directly. Given our early experience with Ansi, we didn’t have much faith in the types of questions detainees would be asked if someone from their domestic intelligence service conducted an interrogation. Once again, because of political pressure from our State Department, we had to accept the Yemenis’ terms. By the end of a single day, the initial terms of engagement were finalized. The rules for conducting joint interrogations would take many more weeks to establish.
We also decided that all our requests would go through Qamish—sweeping aside the problem of dealing with competing agencies. This didn’t mean it was a smooth ride. Qamish was a tough negotiator, but, unlike Ansi, he was pragmatic—and friendly. It was clear that he understood our perspective, which helped. Night was when deals were done in Yemen, and almost every night when Qamish was in Aden, we would spend hours talking and joking with him—cajoling him and bargaining with him to give us access to sites, witnesses, and evidence.
I first heard the name Bob McFadden at 3:00 one morning, the day after John O’Neill had arrived in Aden. I was in a room at the command center, exhausted but unwilling to go to sleep until I had finished following up on some leads and writing reports. John entered the room, spotted me in a corner, beckoned to me, and said he wanted to speak to me privately. I followed him into another room.
“Ali,” he began. In his voice was a tone he usually reserved for unpleasant tasks, and there was also a hint of stress. “Sometimes we have to work with others from outside the FBI. There is a guy here called Bob McFadden who is the case agent for the NCIS. He’s said to be one of the best operational people in the region. He’s an Arabic speaker, too.” John then made a self-deprecating joke about the quality of Arabic an Irishman could speak. “You need to try to work with him,” he added.
I was confused. “Boss, I don’t understand,” I said. “Why is Immigration working with us on this?” In my sleep-deprived state, NCIS had sounded like INS—the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
John smiled. “No, the NCIS. It’s the navy.”
“Sorry, it’s late,” I said, laughing. “That makes more sense. No problem. We’ll do our thing, and if he wants to contribute we’d be grateful for any help we can get.”
Many view it as an insult to be asked to work alongside officials from other agencies, and this antipathy is a recurring problem. I never shared the view. In fact, my first partner when I joined the JTTF was from the CIA. And when I was in charge of a squad, I made sure to partner every FBI agent with a non-FBI official. I believed it was a constructive process that helped improve relations and cooperation.
“Now, go to sleep—that’s an order,” John said. He had, I noticed, been studying my face. None of us were sleeping much. With the blood of sailors on the ground, we didn’t feel we had a right to sleep. John, however, was rightly concerned about the health of his team. Still, I had work to do.
“Let me just finish this report and I’ll go,” I told him.
An hour later John returned to the command center and found me working. He didn’t like being disobeyed, especially when he believed you were harming yourself. He pushed down the lid of my laptop. “That’s it,” he said. “Leave.” He stood there, his hand resting on the laptop as I walked out.
The next day Robert McFadden introduced himself. He had been in U.S. Air Force intelligence before joining NCIS, where he had learned Arabic and served in offices throughout the Arab world. We would become partners in the investigation, doing most of our traveling, interrogations, and interviews together. Bob is polite and gentle, with an acerbic wit. He has a penetrating mind and is hard to fool. Working almost twenty-two-hour days together, we were in sync on everything, from how to prioriti
ze leads and plan investigative strategies to how to interrogate suspects. We became quite close, and consider each other best friends to this day.
10
* * *
“We’re Stubborn, but We’re Not Crazy”
The initial leads we followed with the Yemenis came to nothing, and as days passed, frustration mounted on our side. One day Ambassador Bodine came from a meeting with President Saleh with some evidence for us. It turned out that a few days earlier the Yemenis had brought in a twelve-year-old boy named Hani for questioning. His older brothers reported to the police that Hani had seen men they believed to be the bombers come with a Nissan truck and a boat on a trailer. From under a bridge nearby, Hani saw them park close to the water and bring a crane to lower the boat into the water.
Out of curiosity Hani had moved closer to watch. As he watched them, the men spotted him. They motioned for him to come over and offered him 100 Yemeni rials to guard their truck. While the sum is worth less than a dollar, to Hani it was a significant amount, and he agreed. After the Cole exploded, he waited for their return. He got increasingly nervous as time passed and they didn’t show up. After a while he left, too scared to remain. He then went to his older brothers and told them what had happened, and they thought it best to tell the police.
Hani led the police to the truck. It was a beige Nissan 4x4 with a wooden trailer. In the truck there were a few objects, including ownership papers for the boat in the name of Abdullah Ahmed Khalid Sa’id Musawa, with a black-and-white passport-sized photo attached, a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, and what seemed to be pills for hepatitis.
The Black Banners Page 21
