The Black Banners

by Soufan, Ali H.

Zacarias Moussaoui: Al-Qaeda operative who entered the United States on February 23, 2001, and attended flight schools in Oklahoma and Minnesota. He was arrested on August 16, 2001, and charged with an immigration violation after a flight instructor became suspicious and reported him. He was convicted for his role in 9/11 and sentenced to life in prison.

  Robert Mueller: Became director of the FBI on September 4, 2001. Supported the decision of FBI agents not to get involved in the CIA’s coercive interrogation program despite strong pressure from the Bush administration.

  Hamoud Naji: Head of Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s security team during our investigation into the USS Cole bombing.

  Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri (full name: Abdul Rahim Hussein Muhammad Abda al-Nashiri; aliases: Abda Hussein Muhammad, Abdu, Sa’eed al-Mansouri, and Mullah Bilal): Senior al-Qaeda special operations member who masterminded the October 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole. After joining the organization as part of the Northern Group in 1996, he rose through its ranks to eventually become head of operations in the Arabian Gulf. He was captured in November 2002 and put into the CIA’s coercive interrogation program, and the FBI was not given access to him at the time. He is being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

  Ibrahim al-Nibras (alias of Ibrahim al-Thawer): Yemeni al-Qaeda operative who, with Fahd al-Quso, transported $36,000 from Yemen to Khallad in Bangkok—money that was probably used by 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi for their plane tickets to the United States and for spending money there. After delivering the money to Khallad he became a suicide bomber, alongside Hassan al-Khamiri, in the bombing of the USS Cole.

  Mullah Omar: Reclusive founder and leader of the Taliban whose followers named him Amir al-Mu’minin, or “commander of the faithful”—emir of the country. Bin Laden pledged allegiance to him, and he in turn offered al-Qaeda refuge and protection.

  John O’Neill: Veteran FBI official who, on January 1, 1997, became the special agent in charge of the National Security Division in the FBI’s New York office. He picked me to be the case agent of several important investigations, and became a friend and mentor. He left the FBI on August 22, 2001, to work in the World Trade Center, where he died on 9/11.

  Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali (aliases: Moath al-Balucci and Khaled Saleem bin Rasheed): Al-Qaeda operative who joined the group in 1996 as part of the Northern Group; recruited with the help of Muhannad bin Attash. Tasked with being a suicide bomber for the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, he didn’t end up killing himself, and was later interrogated (separately) by John Anticev and Stephen Gaudin. He confessed his role and was later convicted, and is serving life in prison.

  Jose Padilla (alias Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir): American al-Qaeda member who, with Binyam Mohamed, intended to attack the United States with a dirty bomb. [4 words redacted] learned about his intentions during [1 word redacted] interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, and then our squad tracked him across the world before arresting him as he landed in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. The Bush administration publicly exaggerated Padilla’s capabilities. He was convicted and sentenced to seventeen years and four months in prison.

  Frank Pellegrino: FBI special agent from the I-49 squad who was the case agent for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed but who was prevented by the CIA from interrogating him.

  Mohammed al-Qahtani: Al-Qaeda member who attempted to enter the United States on August 4, 2001, but was refused entry by a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent. After 9/11 he was arrested in Afghanistan and taken to Guantánamo, where a fingerprint check identified him. He was taken from the FBI and subjected to coercive interrogation techniques, which didn’t yield any new information. He is being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

  Ghalib al-Qamish: Head of the Political Security Organization in Yemen whom we worked with during the USS Cole investigation and in investigations into, and after, 9/11.

  Ibrahim al-Qosi (full name: Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi; alias Abu Khubaib al-Sudani): Al-Qaeda operative who was with bin Laden from the start and who served as an accountant for the organization. He is married to the daughter of Abdullah Tabarak. I identified him at Guantánamo and gained his cooperation and confession. Before his trial, he entered a guilty plea.

  Fahd al-Quso (alias Abu Hathayfah al-Adani): Member of al-Qaeda in Yemen who was tasked with videotaping the Cole operation. He confessed his role to Robert McFadden and me, and also told us how he and Ibrahim al-Nibras delivered $36,000 to Khallad in Malaysia. We passed this information to the CIA and asked if they knew anything about Khallad’s movements in the region; they replied that they didn’t. After 9/11 we discovered that the CIA had known about Khallad’s movements, and that he met with Quso and Nibras after coming from al-Qaeda’s 9/11 planning summit in Malaysia. The $36,000 was probably used by 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi to buy their tickets to the United States and for spending money there. Today he is free in Yemen and remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.

  Omar Abdul Rahman: Known as the Blind Sheikh (childhood diabetes left him sightless), he led al-Gamma’a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group), a rival of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad. After being imprisoned in, and then expelled from, Egypt in connection with the 1981 assassination of Sadat, he made his way to the United States to take control of Abdullah Azzam’s U.S. operations. He was able to enter the United States after being given a visa by a CIA official, despite being on the U.S. State Department terrorist watchlist. He was arrested in the FBI’s Operation Terrorstop and sentenced to life in prison.

  Ali Abdullah Saleh: President of Yemen who, during the Yemeni civil war, built a relationship with mujahideen fighters; they helped him lead the North to defeat the socialist South. That began a complex relationship with extremists and al-Qaeda that continues to this day.

  Mohammed Saleh: Egyptian Islamic Jihad shura council member and close associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri who joined the al-Qaeda shura council following the March 2001 official merger of the two groups. On 9/11 al-Qaeda held a celebration of the attacks in his house. He was killed by a U.S. missile.

  Marwan al-Shehhi: A member of the Hamburg cell and roommate of 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and facilitator Ramzi Binalshibh, he was one of the hijackers on United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Fahd al-Quso’s confession to NCIS special agent Robert McFadden and me that Shehhi had stayed at one point in Abu Jandal’s guesthouse enabled us to convince the Yemenis to let us question Abu Jandal.

  [2 words redacted]: CIA’s chief operational psychologist with whom [1 word redacted] worked during the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah [3 words redacted]. He left the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah after CIA contractors made it clear that they intended to use coercive interrogation techniques.

  Abdullah Sungkar: Leader of Darul Islam who founded the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah with the cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. He arranged for members to travel to Afghanistan in the 1980s to train and fight the Soviets. One of his key followers was Hambali. He died in 1999.

  Adbullah Tabarak (alias Abu Assim al-Maghrebi): Close personal friend of bin Laden’s dating back to their days fighting the Soviets together, he followed him to Sudan and was asked by the al-Qaeda leader to head his bodyguard detachment after the 1998 East African embassy bombings. He is the father-in-law of Ibrahim al-Qosi. Arrested with Ali al-Bahlul as part of the “dirty thirty” group after 9/11 and taken to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. I identified him based on a description Abu Jandal had given me, and I took him out of the general population. Under suspicious circumstances, the FBI was barred from questioning him and he was released. Today he is free in Morocco.

  Furqan al-Tajiki (alias of Fawaz al-Rabeiee): Yemeni al-Qaeda operative who was arrested in connection with the Bayt Habra car theft plot and was later involved in other al-Qaeda operations in Yemen. In February 2006 he escaped with other al-Qaeda members from a jail in Saana, and he was killed in October 2006. />
  Madani al-Tayyib (also known as Abu Fadhl al-Makkee): Al-Qaeda’s first financial chief, he lost a leg during the Soviet jihad and was very close to bin Laden. He ordered Jamal al-Fadl to try to procure uranium for the organization. In the 1990s he traveled to Europe with the help of Khalid al-Fawwaz to get treatment for his leg, and in 1997 it was reported that he had defected from al-Qaeda—causing many operatives, including Harun Fazul, to panic. He cooperated with the Saudi authorities, who said that they shared the information he gave them with the CIA, but this information was never passed along to the FBI. At one point, the U.S. military mistakenly thought that they had him in custody in Guantánamo. Today he is in Saudi Arabia.

  George Tenet: Director of the CIA from July 1997 to July 2004. Under his leadership the professional interrogators from the CIA were sidelined, contractors were put in charge of interrogations, and coercive interrogations were introduced.

  Tom Ward: An NYPD detective assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York whom I picked to be a member of our team for the USS Cole bombing investigation.

  Colonel Yassir (not his real name): Yemeni interrogator whom we worked closely with during the USS Cole investigation and in investigations after 9/11.

  Ramzi Yousef: Mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with whom he plotted the failed Manila Air (Bojinka) attack. He is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.

  Ayman al-Zawahiri: Originally one of the leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, he supported the group’s merger with al-Qaeda and became bin Laden’s deputy. He helped surround bin Laden with fellow Egyptians, ensuring that they dominated and shaped al-Qaeda. He is suspected of being behind the 1989 assassination of Abdullah Azzam. On June 16, 2011, al-Qaeda announced that he had been appointed the new leader of the group following bin Laden’s death.

  Aaron Zebley: FBI special agent with a legal background who was instrumental in apprehending and gaining a confession from Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, an operative involved in the 1998 East African embassy bombings. He was assigned to the 9/11 investigation after the attacks, and with Mike Butsch trailed Ramzi Binalshibh. [22 words redacted]

  Key Documents and Articles Cited

  Note: Spellings are as in original.

  United States v. Usama Bin Laden, Indictment (unsealed November 4, 1998), http://jya.com/usa-v-laden.htm.

  United States v. Usama Bin Laden, Muhammad Atef, Wadih El Hage, Fazul Adbullah Mohammed, Mohamed Saeek Odeh, Mohamed Rasheed Daoud Al-Owhali, Indictment, November 4, 1998, http://jya.com/usa-v-laden+5.htm.

  USA v. Usama bin Laden et al. trial in the Southern District of New York (Days 1–76, Pre-Sentencing Hearing, Sentencing Hearing), February 5, 2001–October 18, 2001, http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-dt.htm.

  The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf.

  John L. Helgerson, CIA Office of Inspector General Report on CIA Accountability with Respect to the 9/11 Attacks, June 2005, http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/oig-911.pdf.

  U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General Report: A Review of the FBI’s Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq, http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s0805/final.pdf.

  Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility Report—Investigation into the Office of Legal Counsel’s Memoranda Concerning Issues Relating to the Central Intelligence Agency’s Use of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” on Suspected Terrorists, http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/OPRFinalReport090729.pdf.

  CIA Office of Inspector General, Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 1–October 2003), May 7, 2004, http://luxmedia.com.edgesuite.net/aclu/IG_Report.pdf.

  U.S. Senate, Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on Postwar Findings About Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar Assessments, September 8, 2006, http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf.

  Penttbom Timeline Briefing, FBI Headquarters, December 10–11, 2003, http://www.scribd.com/doc/20830948/Mfr-Nara-t1a-FBI-Penttbom-Timeline-Briefing-12-10-03-00265.

  U.S. Senate, Report of the Committee on Armed Services: Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody, http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/Detainee%20Report%20Final_April%2022%202009.pdf.

  CIA Report, Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against Al-Qa’ida, June 3, 2005, http://ccrjustice.org/files/CIA%20Doc%20Detainee%20Reporting%20Pivotal.pdf.

  U.S Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel: Memorandum for John Rizzo, Acting General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency (Bybee Memo), August 1, 2002, http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2009/04/16/16/Taylor-OLC-CIAtorturememo-1.source.prod_affiliate.91.pdf.

  U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Memorandum for John A. Rizzo Senior Deputy General Counsel, Central Intelligence Agency (Bradbury Memo), May 30, 2005, http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2009/04/16/16/Taylor-OLC-CIAmemo3-1.source.prod_affiliate.91.pdf.

  The CIA Interrogation of Abu Zubaydah (March 2001–Jan. 2003),* http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/CIA_Interrogation_of_AZ_released_04-15-10.pdf.

  Department of Defense Joint Task-Force 170 Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Memorandum for Commander, United States Southern Command. Subject: Counter-Resistance Strategies, http://www.defense.gov/news/Jun2004/d20040622doc3.pdf.

  CIA Psychological Assessment of Zain al-‘Abideen Muhammad Hassan, a.k.a. Abu Zubaydah, http://www.aclu.org/files/torturefoia/released/082409/cia_ig/oig39.pdf.

  Government of Singapore White Paper, The Jemaah Islamiyah Arrests and the Threat of Terrorism, January 2003, http://www.mha.gov.sg/publication_details.aspx?pageid=35&cid=354.

  Press Briefing on the West Coast Terrorist Plot by Frances Fragos Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, February 9, 2006, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060209-4.html.

  Fact Sheet, “Keeping America Safe from Attack—President Bush Discusses Intelligence Showing the Importance of Defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq,” May 23, 2007, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/05/print/20070523.html.

  Testimony of Ali Soufan before the United States Senate Judiciary, May 13, 2009, http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=3842&wit_id=7906.

  “My Tortured Decision,” by Ali Soufan, New York Times, April 23, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html.

  **March 2001 is a typographical error; it should be March 2002.

  Copyright © 2011 by Ali H. Soufan

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Soufan, Ali H.

  The black banners : the inside story of 9/11 and the war against Al-Qaeda /

  Ali H. Soufan, with Daniel Freedman. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-0-393-07942-5 (hbk.)

  1. Qaida (Organization). 2. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001.

  3. Terrorism—United States—Prevention. 4. War on Terrorism, 2001–2009.

  I.
Freedman, Daniel, 1982– II. Title.

  HV6432.5.Q2S68 2011

  973.931—dc23 2011026938

  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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