The Black Banners

by Soufan, Ali H.

  The lack of support that the bureau gave him on this issue, coupled with everything else, made him feel that it was time for him to leave. He had been offered a well-paying job as the head of security for the World Trade Center. It was a sad decision for him, as he loved the bureau and the work we did.

  John and I walked to Joe’s Diner, across the street from our offices, and John ordered a ham and cheese sandwich. “You don’t want to change your infidel ways?” I joked, pointing to the ham. “You’ll go to hell.”

  I told John that I was planning to propose to Heather, my girlfriend. In the past, John had been critical of marriage. It probably didn’t help that his own personal life was tangled and messy. But this time there were no anti-marriage barbs from him. Instead he simply said: “She has put up with you all this time. She must be a good woman.”

  John then showed me an e-mail he had written to Lou Gunn, whose son, Cherone, was killed on the USS Cole. It read, in part: “Today is my last day. In my thirty-one years of government service, my proudest moment was when I was selected to lead the investigation of the attack on the USS Cole. I have put my all into the investigation and truly believe that significant progress has been made. Unknown to you and the families is that I have cried with your loss. . . . I will keep you and all the families in my prayers and will continue to track the investigation as a civilian. God bless you, your loved ones, the families and God bless America.”

  “Don’t be a stranger,” John said as we said good-bye outside the diner. “Remember, I’m only down the road.”

  “I’m not sure they’ll let me visit you,” I said with a smile, referring to FBI officials in headquarters who didn’t like John.

  “Fuck them,” he said with a half-grin, half-frown, and after giving me a hug he walked off down the street.

  The next day, on August 23, 2001, Maggie G[1 word redacted] sent a message to the FBI, Customs, and the State Department asking that two individuals, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, be watchlisted, meaning that they’d be arrested if they attempted to enter or leave the United States.

  Earlier in the summer, she had been asked by Tom W[1 word redacted] to look through materials the CIA had related to Khalid al-Mihdhar “in her free time.” She had started looking at the end of July and continued through August. Maggie had found a [1 word redacted] cable noting that Mihdhar had a U.S. visa, and a second cable noting that Nawaf al-Hazmi, labeled an associate of Mihdhar’s, had flown to Los Angeles in January 2000. On August 22 Maggie went to the INS to investigate further and discovered that Mihdhar had entered the United States on January 15, 2000, and then again on July 4, 2001. She reported back to [1 word redacted] and also the information to Dina Corsi.

  Dina sent an e-mail to Jack Cloonan, the acting supervisor of the I-49 squad. Labeled “IT: al Qaeda” (IT standing for International Terrorism), the e-mail asked that the squad investigate whether Khalid al-Mihdhar was still in the United States. Her message stated that because of Mihdhar’s possible connection to the Cole, he was a threat to national security. Beyond that, the e-mail gave no real details about Mihdhar or his connection to al-Qaeda. Dina also wrote that only intelligence agents could be involved in the search. However, she accidentally copied Steve Bongardt on the e-mail. He called her as soon as he had read it.

  “Dina, you’ve got to be kidding me. Mihdhar is in the country?” He could hardly contain his anger.

  Steve remembered the name from the June 11 meeting and the stonewalling he and the team had received. As far as he knew, based upon what had been implied by the June 11 meeting, Mihdhar was somehow connected to the Cole, which made him a threat to the United States. Now Steve was being told Mihdhar was in the United States. How had the FBI not been told?

  “Steve, you’ve got to delete that,” Dina replied nervously. “We’ll have a conference call about it tomorrow.”

  Dina called the next day, with a senior CIA official also on the line. Steve was told by the senior official that he had to “stand down” regarding Mihdhar. He was furious to hear—again—that this was intelligence that couldn’t be shared with criminal agents.

  “If this guy is in the country, it’s not because he’s going to fucking Disneyland,” Steve retorted.

  “Stand down,” the senior official replied.

  The following day, Steve sent Dina an e-mail: “Whatever has happened to this—someday someone will die—and wall or not—the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain ‘problems.’ Let’s hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, UBL [Osama bin Laden], is getting the most ‘protection.’”

  Only FBI personnel, and Steve Corbett and Bob McFadden of NCIS, returned to Yemen in late August 2001; the NYPD and City Hall decided that it was too dangerous to send their people. The head of our team was my old supervisor Tom Donlon, and we stayed at the Sanaa Sheraton.

  Delegations from Washington occasionally visited us. Alabama senator Richard Shelby and his wife, Annette, stayed in the ambassador’s house. I was invited to join them for dinner, and during the meal I briefed them on the Cole investigation and what we were doing in Yemen. As I was leaving the residence, Senator Shelby walked out with me, and, putting his arm around my shoulders, said, “You have to promise me something.”

  “What is that, Senator?”

  “Don’t leave the FBI before you finish investigating this case.”

  “I’m not planning on it, sir.”

  While FBI headquarters was barely on speaking terms with Ambassador Bodine, I always had a cordial relationship with her. Her anger was primarily directed at John and others. As the case agent, I tried to keep my eyes on the ball, and she was always kind and polite to me.

  One evening in the embassy, during a conversation, she told me that she had been in Kuwait when Saddam invaded, launching the first Gulf War. She hadn’t felt unsafe then, she told me; nor did she feel unsafe in Yemen. The only time she had felt unsafe in her life, she continued, was when she took part in a protest in Santa Barbara and a policeman held a gun to her face and told her to go home.

  What surprised me most about Ambassador Bodine was that she attacked the FBI in the pages of the Washington Post years later, in May 2008, when the Yemeni government released some of the terrorists responsible for the Cole bombing—terrorists we had helped lock up. Instead of holding the Yemenis accountable, she was quoted as saying that the FBI had been slow to trust Yemeni authorities and had been “dealing with a bureaucracy and a culture they didn’t understand. . . . We had one group working on a New York minute, and another on a 4,000-year-old history.”

  It was shocking to read those words, especially given the centrality of the Cole to the 9/11 attacks. I responded in an opinion piece: “In fact, our team included several Arab American agents who understood the culture and the region. Even so, such comments were irrelevant. The FBI left Yemen with the terrorists in jail. It is true that while tracking the terrorists we worked ‘on a New York minute.’ We owed that much to the sailors murdered on the Cole and to all innocent people who remained targets as long as the terrorists were free. It is also true that we did not trust some Yemeni officials. We had good reason not to.” The Yemenis themselves later reluctantly admitted that our distrust of some officials was merited: after Quso and Badawi “escaped” from jail in April 2003, we pressured the authorities to look into the matter, and Hussein Ansi was arrested, questioned, and sacked (but they never prosecuted him).

  The difficult relationship we had with Ambassador Bodine was no secret to the Yemenis, who knew that if they had any problems with us they could turn to her. This often undermined progress. Many Yemeni officials were even sympathetic to us in this situation. One day, while I was interrogating a suspect, the head of President Saleh’s security team, Naji, came running into the room and said, “Can I talk to you outside?”

  I stepped out, thinking it must be importan
t. “Well,” he said with a grave look on his face. “I don’t know quite how to say this to you, but a plane has been hijacked.”

  “What plane?”

  “Your ambassador is on the plane.”

  “What’s the situation? Is she okay?”

  “It’s all okay,” he replied. “It was some crazy guy. He didn’t even know the ambassador was on board. And while he was in the cockpit, all the passengers escaped via one of the emergency doors. The hijacker was then hit over the head with a fire extinguisher by a crew member.” Naji couldn’t contain a big smile at this point. He found it highly ironic that Ambassador Bodine had been hijacked when she downplayed our concerns about safety. Naji was also fond of John and knew he hadn’t returned because Bodine wouldn’t give him clearance.

  We had seventeen main reasons for returning to Yemen and pressing ahead despite the death threats and all other complications. They were:

  Hull Maintenance Technician 2nd Class Kenneth Eugene Clodfelter

  Electronics Technician Chief Petty Officer Richard Costelow

  Mess Management Specialist Seaman Lakeina Monique Francis

  Information Systems Technician Seaman Timothy Lee Gauna

  Signalman Seaman Cherone Louis Gunn

  Seaman James Rodrick McDaniels

  Engineman 2nd Class Marc Ian Nieto

  Electronics Warfare Technician 2nd Class Ronald Scott Owens

  Seaman Lakiba Nicole Palmer

  Engineman Fireman Joshua Langdon Parlett

  Fireman Patrick Howard Roy

  Electronic Warfare Technician 1st Class Kevin Shawn Rux

  Mess Management Specialist 3rd Class Ronchester Manangan Santiago

  Operations Specialist 2nd Class Timothy Lamont Saunders

  Fireman Gary Graham Swenchonis Jr.

  Ensign Andrew Triplett

  Seaman Craig Bryan Wibberley

  Those are the seventeen U.S. sailors who were murdered on the USS Cole by al-Qaeda. Each of their names alone was justification enough for our being in Yemen. And until their murderers were tracked down and justice was served, we did not feel that we could rest. We owed it to each one of these sailors and their families to find their killers. Those of us from the FBI, the NCIS, the CIA, and the military who investigated the Cole bombing believed that no American death should go unpunished. America sitting idly by would be a message to future terrorists to strike without fear of reprisal.

  To this day what keeps me awake at night is the disgraceful way that so many in the U.S. government treated the memory of the sailors. I cannot understand the lack of support for our investigation. For reasons unknown, both Democrats and Republicans in the White House and in senior government positions tried to ignore what had happened to the USS Cole. Families of the murdered sailors told me with sadness that President George W. Bush refused to meet with them.

  13

  * * *

  Bin Laden’s Errand Boy

  Walid bin Attash, or Khallad, was as close to being al-Qaeda royalty as possible. His father was friends with bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and Omar Abdul Rahman, the Blind Sheikh. His older brother, Muhannad, had been a trusted bin Laden lieutenant and pivotal in the recruitment of the Northern Group. Khallad himself had joined al-Qaeda in 1994, when he was only fifteen.

  A defining moment in Khallad’s life had come in 1997, when he and Muhannad, along with other al-Qaeda fighters, had fought with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance at Murad Beg, north of Kabul. Muhannad had been killed in the battle, and Khallad had lost his left leg when a howitzer misfired, releasing shrapnel into it. He had been rushed from the battlefield to a hospital, but the leg could not be saved and was amputated below the knee.

  He had received a prosthesis from an NGO, but it hadn’t fit properly and had left him in severe pain. Khallad had already been plunged into a state of depression over the death of Muhannad, and his leg pain had caused even more anguish. Al-Qaeda had sent him to Karachi for therapy, accompanied by his younger brother, al-Bara, who had fought with him at Murad Beg. They had spent the afternoons at the beach in Karachi, with al-Bara pushing Khallad in a wheelchair.

  Khallad’s misery had been relieved by the arrival of a personal letter from bin Laden, praising both his dedication to the cause and Muhannad’s martyrdom. Khallad had resolved to take his brother’s place as a central al-Qaeda figure. He was inordinately proud of having received a personal letter from the emir, and he treasured it.

  On his return to Afghanistan, Khallad had dedicated himself to al-Qaeda, picking up another alias, Silver, after Long John Silver, the infamous one-legged pirate. He had first worked as a bodyguard and had carried out administrative duties for bin Laden, Saif al-Adel, and other senior al-Qaeda leaders. Over time, he had been given more responsibilities, including personal missions for bin Laden, sometimes requiring months of travel. Bin Laden had come to value him; he was Muhannad’s brother in every way.

  Khallad became known in al-Qaeda circles as a trusted bin Laden aide. When other members wanted to see the leader, they would often approach Khallad and ask him to arrange a meeting. Among those he helped secure a private audience was Nibras. Khallad was always pleasant to others and was well liked by the brothers, who appreciated his sense of humor. Their only criticism was that he didn’t offer much guidance to his own younger siblings, al-Bara and Omayer.

  The two younger siblings were very close. As boys, they had been put on a plane by their father and sent to Afghanistan. Their father had not told them where they were going. Al-Bara had been involved in gangs in Saudi Arabia and had been sent to reform school. His family had worried that he would get into drugs and make life even worse for himself, and this had been their justification for shipping him off to Afghanistan to join bin Laden. They had feared the same would happen to Omayer.

  When the young men had arrived in Afghanistan and had discovered where they were, they had become very upset. Al-Bara, especially, preferred to be in Saudi Arabia with his friends rather than within the strict confines of an al-Qaeda camp. In the guesthouse to which they were first taken, al-Bara had run to the bathroom and cried. Khallad and Muhannad had soon joined them in Afghanistan, however, and had helped convert them to the al-Qaeda way of life. And, like Muhannad and Khallad, al-Bara and Omayer had been accepted into the inner circles.

  At Murad Beg, al-Bara had gone missing behind enemy lines, and the Taliban had been forced to send a helicopter to the area to rescue him.

  It was in early 1998 that bin Laden first seriously started thinking about launching a big operation targeting U.S. interests in the Arabia Peninsula. His first idea was to do four simultaneous bombings, targeting anything with a U.S. flag—oil tanker, cruise ship, military vessel—at four ports in Yemen. The ports of al-Hudaydah, Aden, Ash Shihr, and al-Mukalla would be suitable, bin Laden told al-Qaeda’s shura council. He explained that the most important part was that the four actions take place simultaneously. That is what would grab the world’s attention.

  Yemen was chosen because its weak central government, loose borders, and easy access to weapons and explosives made it the easiest place in the region to target U.S. ships. Al-Qaeda had been using Yemen increasingly for operations. As a neighbor of Saudi Arabia, it provided a convenient place from which to smuggle Saudis out of Saudi Arabia to conduct operations elsewhere. Yemeni passports were also easily obtained and were used as cover, especially for Saudis, who would then go to Pakistan and Afghanistan. They didn’t want those stamps on their real passports, as they would arouse Saudi authorities’ suspicions. To get a passport in Yemen, all you had to do was show up at a local government office with two witnesses who confirmed your identity.

  Bin Laden discussed his ideas with Khallad, repeatedly changing his mind about the nature of the operation as he read new information about the U.S. military. When he read that U.S. aircraft carriers carried four thousand soldiers and were nuclear-powered, he told Khallad that attacking one of them would be even more sensational than his first plan
, and they started planning this operation.

  They decided that al-Qaeda would need four boats to attack the four boats that bin Laden had read protected each carrier. Then they’d need a big boat to attack the carrier itself. Khallad started researching the best type of boats for the operation, and he learned what boats locals used in Yemeni ports so that al-Qaeda’s attack boats would blend in and not attract attention.

  By their next discussion, bin Laden had changed his mind again. He had read that U.S. destroyers on their way to Iraq refueled in Yemen. The symbolism of hitting one of those ships would be even greater, he had decided. Khallad liked the idea and told bin Laden that he wanted to be one of the suicide bombers for the operation. Bin Laden said that he would see. In the meantime, he sent Khallad to Yemen to study the ports in the south of the country—Aden, Ash Shihr, and al-Mukalla. He sent Nashiri to do the same type of research in the northern port of al-Hudaydah. Bin Laden didn’t tell Khallad and Nashiri that they were casing for the same type of operation.

  Khallad and Nashiri had become two of bin Laden’s top operatives, and so it was natural that he tasked them with the casing. Both were born in Saudi Arabia and were of Yemeni descent. Khallad’s father had been thrown out of Yemen because of trouble he had caused with the then-communist South. He had been born into the bin Yusifi, a prestigious tribe. Bin Laden calculated that if Khallad got into trouble with Yemen, he could rely on the family name to help him. The al-Qaeda leader was savvy in manipulating tribal advantages.

  Independently of each other, Nashiri and Khallad busied themselves researching the ports that bin Laden had sent them to. They noted the types of local boats used, the security in the area, and whether any U.S vessels docked there. They also traveled around, looking into purchasing boats and explosives. When they passed through Sanaa, they stayed at Bayt Habra, the al-Qaeda guesthouse. Eventually their stops there overlapped.