The Black Banners

by Soufan, Ali H.

  “Maybe,” I said with a smile.

  Gradually Quso became almost boastful about his relationship with bin Laden and al-Qaeda. He thought that we knew most of what he was telling us. We didn’t.

  After finishing high school in 1998, Quso traveled to Afghanistan with two friends from his neighborhood—Taha (who went by a single name) and Mamoun al-Musouwah. Musouwah went on to become a Yemeni policeman and arranged fraudulent documents for al-Qaeda. The young men’s trip was sponsored by a radical network run through a school they attended in Taiz: Sheikh Aqeel University, a known al-Qaeda feeder institution. In Afghanistan, Quso traveled from guesthouse to guesthouse. Finally, Abu Khubaib al-Sudani (Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi) picked him up and took him to a guesthouse whose emir was bin Laden bodyguard Abu Jandal. Quso said that Abu Jandal had a Saudi accent but Yemeni features; he told us that he found him likable. He described watching Abu Jandal care for an al-Qaeda terrorist who was ill during Ramadan. The terrorist had fasted despite having just had his stomach stapled, a dangerous and foolish thing. Abu Jandal’s ministrations brought him back to health. Quso became familiar with other high-ranking al-Qaeda members, including Saif al-Adel, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Mohammed Atef. We showed Quso a photo-book of top members and he was able to identify them.

  Quso also met bin Laden at Abu Jandal’s guesthouse. His feeling for the al-Qaeda leader bordered on infatuation: he told us that he felt serene and peaceful whenever bin Laden spoke. Bin Laden lectured about aggressions committed by Americans against Muslims and how Muslims had a duty to expel infidels from the Arabian Peninsula. Quso approached one of bin Laden’s bodyguards about having an audience with the al-Qaeda leader and was granted one with Taha and Mamoun al-Musouwah. Quso described bin Laden as “very open.” They discussed the justification for jihad. Bin Laden impressed upon the three that “if an inch of Muslim land is occupied, Muslims must undertake jihad.”

  Bin Laden’s topic would vary depending upon who was present. When only close associates were in attendance, he spoke freely and at length. When he didn’t know his listeners, he was more guarded and hesitant. That Quso knew the difference was an indication that bin Laden came to view him as a trusted associate.

  Quso slowly filled in more details about the attack. He said he had learned about it a month and a half beforehand. Badawi had approached him and said that he himself had been charged with the task of recording it but that he would “be busy that day”; so he had asked Quso to step in. He took him to the Tawahi apartment and taught him how to use the camera, a small Sony model. From the window Badawi pointed to two different dolphins (fueling stations) in the harbor and said that the attack would occur at one of them. Quso and Badawi then practiced recording the attack. Quso said that they deleted each practice recording but kept the same tape in the camera. There was also, Quso told us, a new, unused tape in a camera bag.

  After their instruction sessions, Badawi gave Quso a pager and told him that he would receive a “010101” page alerting him that the operation was imminent. As soon as he received the page, he should head to the apartment and begin recording the action at the harbor. Badawi gave Quso a key to the apartment.

  Quso told us that on the morning of the Cole bombing, a Thursday, he woke up early and went to the mosque to read the Quran until sunrise, and then went for morning prayers. There he met his friend Mohammed al-Durrama, who invited him back to his father’s house for breakfast. They ate and took a nap, sleeping till around 9:00 or 9:30, and proceeded to the mosque to study the Quran, as they had a test Monday. Only then, around 9:45 or 10:00, Quso said, did he notice the page; the pager had been on vibrate. He assumed that the page had come while he was sleeping.

  He immediately packed up his things at the mosque and went to Badawi’s house, where the video camera was stored. Badawi wasn’t there—he was at the Ibn al-Amir Institute, a radical religious school in Sanaa—so Quso entered the house using a spare key Badawi had given him. He moved on to his father’s house, where the Tawahi apartment key was stored. While there, he also took a spare key for his sister’s house. He then jumped in a taxi and headed toward the Tawahi apartment.

  When he reached the main street of Ma’alla, a neighborhood near Aden’s harbor, he heard a big explosion. He knew that it was the bombing of the ship, and that he had missed it. He told the driver to turn around, and he went to his sister’s house. No one was home, and he let himself in using the spare key. He hid the video camera and called Badawi in Sanaa. Quso reported to Badawi that the operation had taken place but that he hadn’t videotaped it.

  Next Quso headed to al-Ridda Mosque for the noon prayer. On the way, he received a page from Badawi and stopped at a calling center near a taxi stand to get in touch with him. Badawi asked him to “report the news.” Quso told him that he heard ambulances heading toward the harbor but didn’t know anything else. Badawi asked Quso to go to his (Badawi’s) house to collect three bags and drop them off at his in-laws’. He told Badawi that he was nervous about the situation in Aden and was planning to head to Sanaa. Badawi agreed that it was a good idea. Their conversation was “anxious,” Quso said.

  Later, in the Ba-Nafa’ souk, Quso received a third page from Badawi, who again asked about “the news.” Quso said that he had new information: his sister had told him that she had heard from neighbors that a boat had collided with a military ship. Badawi told Quso he had a new, “important” job for him. “The truck and trailer are still at the launch site,” Badawi said. “I need you to get them. The keys are in the truck.” Quso refused, telling Badawi that a police unit was stationed near the bridge and that it would be dangerous.

  “Everyone in my neighborhood knows that I don’t have a truck and a boat,” Quso continued. “If I am seen after the explosion driving a truck with a boat trailer, it will attract suspicion. I’ll be picked up.”

  “If you don’t pick it up,” Badawi replied, “then all of Burayqah will be under suspicion.”

  “It’s too dangerous, I can’t. I’m coming to Sanaa tonight.” And Quso hung up.

  Quso headed toward Badawi’s house to get the three bags. En route, he bumped into his friend Yasser al-Shini, another al-Qaeda operative, who said he’d help him. The two picked up the bags: a green bag, a briefcase, and a leather purse. Quso asked Shini to close the safe house and warn all the other brothers to leave Aden. Next Quso went to pick up his friend Mohammed al-Durrama, who had told Quso he would leave for Sanaa with him.

  The three headed toward Quso’s house so that he could get some personal items. On their way, Quso received a fourth page from Badawi, checking on the status of the bags. Quso told him that he had the bags with him but that, rather than dropping them at Badawi’s in-laws’, it would be easier for him to drop them somewhere closer, so that he and Durrama could head to Sanaa sooner. Badawi was insistent that they drop the bags at the in-laws’.

  Quso did so, and then he and Durrama headed toward Sanaa. As they passed over the al-Burayqah bridge, Quso saw that the truck and trailer were still parked under it. They arrived in Sanaa after midnight and called the al-Amir Institute, and Badawi instructed a guard to let them in.

  A few days later, Quso said, security forces came and picked up Badawi. Quso remained in Sanaa until the following week, evading the authorities. He called his parents in Aden, only to find that his father had been taken into custody. Realizing that the noose was tightening around him and that his family was paying the consequences, he went back to Aden and surrendered himself to the PSO.

  I was never convinced that Quso had in fact overslept. When the PSO went to Quso’s sister’s house, they found the camera where he said he had put it, but only one tape was found. There should have been two—the practice tape and the spare tape. Quso couldn’t explain what had happened to the second tape.

  Acting on a hunch, I asked him, “So who videotaped the operation, then, if you didn’t?”

  “Maybe the jinn did it,” he replied, smiling. No sooner had he invoked the �
��genie” than Naji, the head of President Saleh’s security team, terminated the interrogation, citing Quso’s need for rest.

  The moment was lost. In interrogations you often have one moment where a suspect makes a slip, and only if you seize on it immediately can you pursue it. If you don’t, he has a chance to reorganize his story and cover up.

  Throughout our interrogations of Quso, Ansi paid extra close attention to what we were asking and what he was answering. He seemed to have more of a personal interest in the Quso interrogation than in Badawi’s or any others’. Often when Quso was in a tight spot and trapped by our questioning, Ansi would call for a break in the interrogation.

  One day, after we had finished questioning Quso, Ansi asked me to take a ride with him in his car. I hesitated, as we had strict security procedures and were never to travel without the FBI SWAT agents responsible for our protection, but I didn’t want to insult Ansi by saying I didn’t trust him. Perhaps he had something important to tell me, I reasoned. I got into his car, and from the side mirror I saw a worried-looking Carlos Fernandez in the FBI convoy following us.

  He drove very slowly, which made me nervous. After a few minutes of silence, he began talking about the interrogations and our investigation. We discussed the evidence we were building up and the progress that was being made. Eventually he said to me, “I believe Quso is a good, simple youth. I believe that Badawi is the man who needs to be prosecuted.”

  It was strange that he was trying to portray Quso as a good person and place the blame on Badawi. “Well, it seems that there are a lot of people who are bad and are involved,” I replied, and he returned to the hotel without raising the topic again.

  Ansi also got agitated when our investigation led us to al-Qaeda sympathizers among Yemeni officials. At one point we interrogated two Yemeni police officials, Yasser al-Surruri and Mohammed al-Murakab, who, under questioning, admitted to having helped terrorists obtain fraudulent passports. We had found these two officials through Quso’s friend Mamoun al-Musouwah, the corrupt policeman. As I emerged from the session with Surruri and Murakab that had yielded that information, I saw Ansi—in the courtyard of the PSO prison where we were conducting the interrogation—and asked, “Can we have the pictures of the operatives Surruri and Murakab identified?”

  “No.”

  “Why? They’re possible suspects and we need to look into them.”

  “No,” Ansi repeated. “Why are they important, anyway? You don’t know if they’re involved. Just because they have beards, it doesn’t mean they’re terrorists.”

  “You’re missing the point,” I replied. “These are known al-Qaeda members getting fraudulent documents. Surruri and Murakah already admitted it. And, yes, they are terrorists.” The next time we spoke to Surruri and Murakab, Ansi yelled at them for speaking directly to us rather than to Yemeni interrogators and slapped Murakab.

  Ansi later complained that, by talking directly to suspects, we were violating the rules agreed upon by David Kelley and the judge, as the rules spelled out that we were to ask the Yemeni officials our questions for them to repeat. But this system soon broke down: once we had established rapport with the Yemeni interrogators, they saw no reason for us not to ask questions directly. It was comical for me to ask a question in Arabic and then for the Yemenis to repeat it; it made no sense and just wasted time. Even the suspects got frustrated.

  Our problems with Ansi continued to multiply. One day, when I arrived with FBI agent Andre Khoury to conduct interrogations, a PSO guard told us apologetically, “Sorry, there will be no interrogations today.” I asked why. “Hussein Ansi told us so.” Again I asked why. “We don’t know. That’s just what he ordered us to say.”

  Andre and I went looking for Ansi and found him at his desk, reading the Quran. “Good morning, Hussein,” I said to him as pleasantly as I could. “We were told there would be no interrogations today. What’s going on?”

  “I am busy today,” he replied, a smirk briefly crossing his face.

  “I can see,” I said, pointing to the Quran. “It is heavenly work you are busy with.” He smiled. “So we can’t talk to suspects today?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. We both smiled, continuing the pretense.

  I started walking around his office. His desk was opposite the door; chairs and couches surrounded it. Behind were bookshelves filled with memorabilia, books, and binders. I paused in front of one of the bookshelves. Ansi tried to look at the Quran but kept nervously glancing up to see what I was doing. I pretended not to notice him looking and started removing memorabilia and books, as if I were interested in their content. After taking out something, I would deliberately put it back in the wrong place. Andre did the same.

  “Don’t touch my things,” Ansi said after about a minute, his eyes flashing in anger. It apparently drove him crazy that we were ruining the organization of the shelves.

  “He has nothing else to do,” Andre said with a smile, “so he is going to mess up your office until you give him something to do.”

  “Okay, okay,” Ansi replied. “You have access to the prisoners.”

  “Thank you, Hussein,” I replied with a smile.

  During our interrogation of Quso we also covered his activities during the week before the bombing. On the day before the Cole attack, he said that he was at Ibn al-Qayyim Mosque in al-Burayqah and that four brothers from Sanaa had walked in. One of them, Abdullah al-Rimi, he’d known since 1994, when they had studied at Sheikh Aqeel University; in subsequent years, Rimi had become an important al-Qaeda recruiter. Quso greeted them and invited them to his residence, Bayt al-Shabab—the House of Youths. The al-Qaeda guesthouse operated under the claim of da’wa, a calling for the faith. Fellow al-Qaeda members and potential recruits could linger and talk.

  The men accepted his invitation and stayed for a half-hour, drinking tea. Another operative, Yasser Ahmad Qassem, came as well and spoke to Rimi privately. Rimi, Qassem, and a driver departed, while Quso left the house to arrange for lunch at the house of Yasser al-Azzani, a known al-Qaeda operative. After the noon prayer they all gathered at Azzani’s. Other local al-Qaeda operatives joined them, including Ahmad al-Shini and Mohammed al-Durrama.

  One discussion at lunch centered on funding jihad, and some of those present accused Rimi of “favoritism” with regard to expenditures and allocation of funds. Quso initially agreed, until Rimi said that, as he worked hard to raise the money from donors, he was free to decide how to spend the money. Quso agreed that it was a valid point. Rimi then told Quso that they wanted to go swimming in the sea, and everyone but Quso went off to find trunks. Following the afternoon prayer, Quso returned from the mosque and was told that the visitors had already gone back to Sanaa.

  When Quso described this occasion, at first it sounded to us like a good-bye luncheon for the Cole bombers. He identified a photo of Musawa and said that he had been present; by now we identified him as Hassan al-Khamiri, using the alias Abu Ali. That wasn’t the only connection between the luncheon and the attack: another of the guests had fought, in Afghanistan, under Taha al-Ahdal, who was meant to be the Sullivans suicide bomber. If the luncheon was a final send-off for the bombers, it would have meant that many in Yemen had had advance knowledge of the attack and of the fact that the Cole was coming. When we looked further, however, we found that Rimi was simply trying to get fraudulent passports for al-Qaeda terrorists for future operations. There was no apparent direct operational connection between the lunch and the Cole attack.

  After covering Quso’s path to al-Qaeda and his actions in the days before the Cole, we broadened the discussion to cover the months prior to the Cole. One episode stood out, although to Quso it wasn’t a big deal, which is perhaps why he didn’t see any problem in telling us about it. In late December 1999, Quso had received a phone call from Khallad, whom he knew well from Afghanistan. The two men had become so friendly there that at one point they had even discussed Khallad’s marrying Quso’s sister, although that didn’t
end up happening.

  Quso described Khallad as having a slight build, thick hair, a Saudi accent, a full beard, and “pretty eyes,” which matched my own observation, based on the ID Qamish had shown me—except for the beard: though the operatives tended to have beards while they were in Afghanistan, when they traveled for operations they cut their beards to try to blend in. Khallad claimed to be twenty-five, but Quso thought that he was older. The two had remained in contact even after Quso had left Afghanistan, and Khallad had told Quso that if he ever wished to return, Khallad’s father, Mohammed bin Saleh bin Attash, would fund his trip.

  Khallad had an important favor to ask Quso. Khallad’s father had sent $36,000 from Saudi Arabia to an al-Qaeda operative named Ibrahim al-Thawer, alias Nibras, in Sanaa. We were still unaware, when we interrogated Quso, that Nibras was one of the Cole suicide bombers. Quso knew Nibras from Afghanistan; they had fought on the same front and at one point had stayed in the same guesthouse. (Nibras had also fought in Bosnia.) According to Quso, Khallad said that the money was for a new prosthesis. Khallad was in Asia at the time, and he had told Nibras to take the money to Singapore, where he’d meet him and collect it. But Khallad felt that, for customs reasons, $36,000 was too large an amount for Nibras to carry alone. Without hesitation Quso agreed to help.

  As Quso told us about the phone call, his tone and demeanor livened up. It was clear that he was proud of his connection to Khallad, an important al-Qaeda member, and of the status conferred upon him by Khallad’s having enlisted his help.

  Quso went to Sanaa, and he and Nibras had dinner and discussed the trip. Nibras told Quso to shave and to wear trousers (instead of the traditional Yemeni garb) in order to blend in and not attract attention at the airport. They had to be careful, he warned, especially as they already had Pakistan entry and exit stamps on their passports from their time fighting in Afghanistan. Quso returned to Aden, waiting for Nibras to finalize their tickets.