My father, for installing in me the same passion, work ethic, and commitment to doing the right thing that he had. To my mother, brother, and sister, for a lifetime of love.
Daniel Freedman, my friend and coauthor, was instrumental in helping to write this book. His work ethic, keen intellect, and energetic nature are the bedrock of this project. I am immensely appreciative of his incredible hard work and dedication. Special thanks also go to his wife, Becky—for putting up with the long and late hours we spent on the book—and to the two of them for being friends and family to Heather and me.
I have been fortunate to serve alongside, and learn from, many exceptional people from the U.S. law enforcement, military, and intelligence worlds, and from allied countries. Among them are, from the FBI: Carlos Fernandez, who is a great friend, trusted confidant, and superb colleague; Pat D’Amuro, for his exceptional character and support; Kenny Maxwell, who was always a great boss and trusted friend; and, from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Bob McFadden, the best partner anyone can have.
There are many others who deserve mention, among them Mark Fallon, Steve Corbett, Ken Reuwer, and Mike Gelles, from NCIS; Col. Scott Duke and his fusion team; and Tom Donlon, Don Borelli, Steve Bongardt, Debbie Doran, Stephen Gaudin, Bob Herrmann, Ryan Plunkett, Tom Neer, Bill Corbett, George Crouch, Joe Ennis, Russell Fincher, Aaron Zebley, Mike Butsch, Brian Getson, Jeff “Gunny” Ringel, Kevin Cruise, Dan Coleman, Kevin Donovan, Andy Arena, Mary Galligan, Barry Mawn, Jack Cloonan, Andre Khoury, John Anticev, Mike Anticev, Chris Reimann, Chuck Frahm, Amy Lyons, Mark Whitworth, Jerry Cocuzzo, Jim Margolin, Joe Valiquette, Ray Holcomb, Dan Fethiere, April Phillips, Abby Perkins, Hank Shaw, Scott Jessie, Frank Pellegrino, Jen Keenan, Joe Landers, Chris Nicholas, and John Liguori, from the FBI. Kathy MacGowan, Rosie Lepore, Barbara Calandra (my former secretary), Anita Waddell (who retired and is my office manager), Dennis Baker, and the many others in the FBI and in other agencies who support the agents in the field—without them, we would have no success.
I also worked alongside many fine men and women from the CIA, but by definition their jobs require that they remain anonymous. Then there are the officials from the State Department and the diplomatic service. Thank you all.
A special thank you also goes to all the people whom I worked with on the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, within my squad and beyond. Roger Koury for his unwavering friendship. Tom Corrigan (who sadly passed away in July 2011), Kevin Yorke, Kevin Butler, Louis Napoli, Brian Dennigan, Wayne Parola, Tom Ward, Terry McGhee, and Bobby Losada, from the NYPD. My team included men and women from the NYPD, the FBI, the Port Authority, and Homeland Security—it was an honor to work alongside you. In Yemen and across the world I served with members of the U.S. military—soldiers, sailors, and marines. You inspire me.
I’d also like to thank Mike Kortan, from the FBI’s public affairs office, for his help and guidance, and his predecessor, John Miller, who helped me with the process. John in many ways is responsible for this book—because he consistently encouraged me to write one. Thanks are also due to the FBI’s Prepublication Review Office, especially Zach Wright and Dennis Argall.
Every organization is only as good as its leaders. In the FBI I was fortunate to work under two directors, Louis Freeh and Robert Mueller. Our nation would greatly benefit if other leaders took lessons from your playbook.
Outside the FBI, the CIA, the military, and other agencies one commonly associates with fighting terrorism are the prosecutors—both in civilian and military courts—who work with us on the front lines to ensure that those we catch will stay locked up. I was fortunate to work alongside many of our nation’s best, including David Kelly, Pat Fitzgerald, and Ken Karas, who is now a judge. The staff of the Office of Military Commissions, both from the prosecution and the defense, who every day remind the world of who we are and what our country is about—we all owe you our gratitude.
During my career with the FBI I was fortunate to serve alongside outstanding officials from other countries, from whom I learned a great deal and with whom I formed great friendships. To John Bunn, Alan Fry, Peter Clarke, in the UK; and to Giuseppe Petronzi and Massimo De Benedittis, in Italy, to name just a few. My good friend Saad al-Khair, from Jordan, is no longer alive, but he taught me a great deal.
My friends in Singapore deserve special mention: Susan Sim, a colleague and a friend, was a great help with this book, as she is in other areas; and my friends from the different government agencies have my deep appreciation. Most, unfortunately, cannot be mentioned, other than Interpol president Khoo Boon Hui, but we indeed owe thanks to those involved in security in Singapore.
I’d now like to turn to those friendships I’ve developed since I left government. A special mention goes to those I work alongside who are today still on the front lines, especially Mohammed al-Missned, who is more than a friend, more like a brother, and who is always a few steps ahead of everyone else. The gifted diplomat Umej Singh Bhatia is both a good friend and someone I’ve learned a great deal from.
Another person who deserves mention is Lawrence Wright—his dedication to pursuing the truth, put together brilliantly in his book The Looming Tower, is a lesson to every aspiring journalist. Barry McManus, Steve Kleinman, Stephen White, Philip Zelikow, Mark Pritchard, Karen Greenberg, Dan Benjamin, Tim Andrews, Mike Jacobson, and other friends also teach me a great deal. My thanks also go to Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who gave me my first job after I left the bureau, and to Dan Connolly at Giuliani Partners, a high-minded true friend.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to my colleagues at The Soufan Group: Mark Smith, Ahmad Khalil, Heidi Fink, Sandy Choi, Angie Hutcheson, John Waddell, Bud Aldridge, Jim McGee, Ray Mey, my friend Mohammed Hanzab, and all our instructors, language teachers, interpreters, and the whole team at the Qatar International Academy for Security Studies (QIASS)—I treasure your friendship. Michael Lomonaco and Tim Brown from the excellent Porter House are two caring friends, as well as excellent hosts. To Sayeed Rahman, Liora Danan, Jared Wigdor, and Samm Tyroler-Cooper, our research interns who helped with this book.
While most of those whom I’d like to thank I’m able to, some are sadly no longer with us. The seventeen sailors who died on the USS Cole are heroes, in every sense of the word, whom I will never forget; and neither should America. Lenny Hatton was a heroic FBI agent who died on 9/11, running into the burning twin towers to try to save lives. Finally, there’s John O’Neill, my boss, friend, and mentor—who understood the threat more than anyone else. He died in the twin towers, too. John, more than anyone else, this is for you.
A special thank you goes to my agent, Andrew Wylie, who has guided me through the writing process, and to the team at his agency. Starling Lawrence, my very capable editor at Norton, and his team—Louise Brockett, Rachel Salzman, Melody Conroy, Bill Rusin, Nancy Palmquist, Don Rifkin, Anna Oler, and everyone else—did a wonderful job, and I owe my deep thanks to them for believing in this project and guiding it to fruition. Janet Byrne, who worked alongside Star as a second editor: her stunning skills and amazing tenacity transformed the original material into this book.
My final thanks go to the heroes of the country who are today still on the front lines—across the military, FBI, CIA, NCIS, and other agencies—and who every day put their lives on the line for us. Thank you.
Principal Characters
Nasir Abbas: A commander of the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah who opposed the efforts of Hambali to tie the group to al-Qaeda. He later left the group, and I spoke to him in 2010 in Indonesia.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah (aliases: Saleh, [1 word redacted], and Abu Mohammed al-Masri): Headed al-Qaeda’s East African cells following the death of Abu Ubaidah on May 21, 1996, and was indicted for his role in planning the 1998 East African embassy bombings. He is on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.
Abu Abdul Rahman al-Muhajir (alias of Muhsin Musa Matwakku Atwah): Al-Qaeda’s explosives expert and master bomb maker; indicted for the
1998 East African embassy bombings. He was reported by Pakistani officials to have been killed in 2006 by an airstrike in North Waziristan, a claim confirmed by U.S. officials through DNA testing.
Abu Bakar Bashir: Cofounded the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah with Abdullah Sungkar, and after Sungkar’s death in 1999 he took over the group. He supported Hambali’s relationship with al-Qaeda.
Abu Hafs al-Mauritani (alias of Mahfouz Ould al-Walid): Shura council member and the only person in al-Qaeda with religious training; headed the fatwa committee following the arrest of Abu Hajer al-Iraqi. Reports occasionally surface that he has been killed, but they have never been confirmed, and some analysts believe he is living in Iran.
Abu Hafs al-Masri: (alias of Mohammed Atef): Al-Qaeda’s military commander after the death of Abu Ubaidah in 1996. He was eventually killed in November 2001 by a U.S. airstrike on his hiding place; in the rubble of the house we found important evidence that became part of the DocEx program.
Abu Hajer al-Iraqi (alias of Mamdouh Mahmoud Salem): Kurd who fought in Saddam’s army and then alongside bin Laden in Afghanistan, where the two became close friends. Although he wasn’t a cleric, he memorized the Quran, and bin Laden appointed him head of al-Qaeda’s fatwa committee. From that perch he wrote justifications for al-Qaeda’s actions, including the killing of innocent civilians. He was arrested in Germany in September 1998 and extradited to the United States, where he was sentenced for participating in the 1998 East African embassy bombings.
Abu Jandal (literally, “father of death”; alias of Nasser Ahmad Nasser al-Bahri): Member of the Northern Group who was recruited to al-Qaeda in 1996 with the help of Muhannad bin Attash; rose within the organization to become bin Laden’s personal bodyguard. He is the brother-in-law of Salim Hamdan, who served as bin Laden’s driver and confidant; it was the al-Qaeda leader who encouraged the two to marry sisters. Abu Jandal had been arrested by the Yemeni authorities after the October 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole, but they only let us question him after 9/11, when another al-Qaeda operative, Fahd al-Quso, linked him to one of the 9/11 hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi. NCIS Special Agent Robert McFadden and I interrogated him, and he identified many of the 9/11 hijackers and provided invaluable intelligence on al-Qaeda’s structure, operatives, and operations. To date that interrogation is viewed as the most successful in the war against al-Qaeda. Today he is free in Yemen.
Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri (alias of Amin Ali al-Rashidi): A member of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad before joining al-Qaeda, he was bin Laden’s first deputy and then became the group’s first military commander. He drowned in 1996 in a ferry accident on Lake Victoria.
Abu Zubaydah (full name: Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn Abu Zubaydah; alias Daood): Independent terrorist facilitator who served as the external emir of the Khaldan training camp and was the partner of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Liby. We first came across Abu Zubaydah during the Millennium Operation in Jordan. He was captured in a shootout in March 2002 and flown to a secret location, where [3 words redacted] interrogated him. We gained important actionable intelligence from him, including his identification of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of 9/11. He also told us about Jose Padilla and Binyam Mohamed’s so-called dirty bomb plot. [2 words redacted] Abu Zubaydah when final control of his interrogation was given over to CIA contractors employing coercive interrogation techniques. Their techniques failed, and in secret memos they tried to claim [1 word redacted] earlier successes as their own. He is being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Salman al-Adani: Al-Qaeda operative tasked with being one of the suicide bombers for the January 2000 attack on the USS The Sullivans—which failed because Adani and his fellow suicide bomber, Taha al-Ahdal, miscalculated the tide and their boat got stuck in the sand. He later died after jumping into a sewer to try to save a boy who had fallen in.
Saif al-Adel: Senior al-Qaeda operative who is a member of the shura council and heads the organization’s security committee. After bin Laden’s death, he was appointed the interim leader of al-Qaeda. He held that position until June 16, 2011, when Ayman al-Zawahiri officially became its new leader. He remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.
Taha al-Ahdal: An al-Qaeda operative who, with Salman al-Adani, was one of the intended suicide bombers for the aborted January 2000 attack on the USS The Sullivans. He was killed while fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Alvin (not his real name): CIA chief of operations in Jordan during the Millennium Operation. He went on to become the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center Sunni extremists chief.
Hussein Ansi: Head of Yemen’s Political Security Organization in Aden while we were investigating the bombing of the USS Cole. He appeared to be sympathetic to al-Qaeda and often tried to frustrate our investigation. After two of the al-Qaeda members involved in the attack, Fahd al-Quso and Jamal al-Badawi, “escaped” from jail in April 2003, we pressured the Yemenis to look into Ansi’s complicity, and he was eventually arrested, questioned, and sacked (but never prosecuted).
John Anticev: FBI Special Agent and I-49 squad member (and brother of Mike Anticev) who was the case agent for Operation Terrorstop, among other high-profile investigations. He also successfully interrogated both Mohamed Sadeek Odeh and Mohamed al-Owhali during the 1998 East African embassy bombings investigation, extracting from Owhali the phone number belonging to Ahmed al-Hada—which served as a virtual switchboard for al-Qaeda.
Mike Anticev: FBI special agent and I-49 squad member (and brother of John Anticev) who helped manage Jamal al-Fadl (“Junior”).
Andy Arena: Assistant agent in charge at the Detroit office who was appointed Pat D’Amuro’s deputy in investigating 9/11. He refused a request from the Bush administration to report links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Mohammed Atta: The leader of the 9/11 hijackers, he piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center. A member of the Hamburg cell, he roomed there with 9/11 coordinator Ramzi Binalshibh and hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi.
Abdullah Azzam: A Palestinian cleric who inspired many Muslims, including bin Laden, to join the mujahideen and fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. With bin Laden he founded Makhtab al-Khidmat (Bureau of Services), which channeled money and recruits into Afghanistan. He was a potential rival to bin Laden to head al-Qaeda and was assassinated on November 24, 1989. Many suspected that Ayman al-Zawahiri was behind his murder, but this has never been proven.
Jamal al-Badawi: Yemeni al-Qaeda member who was involved in the USS Cole bombing. He was a close friend of Khallad’s; Khallad brought him into the operation. I interrogated him in Yemen with NCIS agent Ken Reuwer, gained his confession, and helped prosecute him in a Yemeni court. He was given a death sentence, “escaped,” and was later pardoned by President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.
Ali al-Bahlul (alias of Anas al-Mekki): Served as bin Laden’s propagandist and secretary, a position he was appointed to after putting together the propaganda video celebrating the bombing of the USS Cole. He was captured in 2002 along with a group of thirty other al-Qaeda operatives nicknamed the “dirty thirty.” I gained his cooperation and confession in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and served as the key witness in his trial. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Ammar al-Baluchi (alias of Abdul Aziz Ali): Al-Qaeda operative who was the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and who helped the hijackers with money and logistics. He was arrested with Khallad in Pakistan on April 29, 2003, and identified by a quick-witted police officer. He is being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Al-Bara (alias of Abdul Aziz bin Attash): Al-Qaeda operative who is one of the younger brothers of Khallad and Muhannad bin Attash. He was convicted and jailed in Yemen in connection with the Bayt Habra plot, and I interrogated him and gained his cooperation.
Mozzam Begg: British Pakistani extremist who operated al-Ansar, a bookstore in Birmingham, and helped raise funds for the Khaldan training cam
p. He escaped from England to Afghanistan when British authorities first tried to arrest him. He was taken to Guantánamo after being captured in Pakistan in 2002. In 2005 he was freed, and today he is a free man in the UK.
Muhannad bin Attash: Older brother of Khallad, al-Bara, [1 word redacted], and Moaz bin Attash; a key aide to bin Laden and instrumental in recruiting members of the Northern Group in 1996. He was killed in 1997 fighting alongside the Taliban at Murad Beg, in the same battle in which his brother Khallad lost a leg.
Ramzi Binalshibh: Yemeni al-Qaeda operative who was the roommate of Mohammed Atta, the head 9/11 hijacker, and of another hijacker, Marwan al-Shehhi, in Hamburg. He was to be one of the 9/11 hijackers but was unable to get a U.S. visa. Instead he served as the liaison between the hijackers and mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He was arrested on September 11, 2002, after information gained by an FBI colleague from Ahmed al-Darbi helped lead us to him. [1 word redacted] was allowed to interrogate him for forty-five minutes shortly after his capture—but despite the fact that he cooperated, [20 words redacted]. He is being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Osama bin Laden: A Saudi of Yemeni origins, he founded al-Qaeda in 1988 after raising funds during the first Afghani jihad, during which he worked alongside Abdullah Azzam in operating Makhtab al-Khidmat, which channeled money and recruits into Afghanistan. After founding al-Qaeda, bin Laden went back to his homeland, Saudi Arabia, in 1990 before moving the organization to Sudan (1991) and then back to Afghanistan (1996). In Afghanistan he pledged allegiance to Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban. From Afghanistan bin Laden planned many attacks, including the bombing of the USS Cole and 9/11. He was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs during a May 2, 2011, raid on the compound in which he lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Barbara K. Bodine: U.S. ambassador to Yemen from November 1997 to August 30, 2002. Many in the FBI and the U.S. military investigating the USS Cole bombing felt she obstructed the investigation.
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