by Adrian Levy
109. Everyone accepted that their community’s association with Al Qaeda was hazardous, but the rules of Pashtunwali prevented them from ejecting the foreign fighters, who came and went as they pleased.
110. An ambulance was permanently parked up in front of the compound, although the Iranians suspected that the inordinate number of sick children needing treatment was just another ruse to get out of the compound and send messages. The situation came to a head when one of the wives was refused permission to take her nursing child with her to the hospital. Some brothers accused Dr. Jamali of being “not a doctor for humans but rather a doctor for animals” and went on a rampage, breaking out of the compound gate and into Block 200, where they climbed the walls and broke security cameras.
111. To show goodwill, the Iranians sent in a new envoy, an eminent cleric called Haji Abu Fatima, who was president of the Iranian Pilgrims Mission. As a peace offering, he brought several liters of precious Zamzam water (from the holy spring at Mecca) and arak-tree toothbrushes. He told the Mauritanian in December 2006 that he was going to Mecca and offered to bring gifts back for the Al Qaeda brothers; when the intelligence ministry found out, Abu Fatima was banished from the compound. It was terrible news for Mahfouz, who had been negotiating to go with him to the Tehran International Book Fair, in order to make some purchases.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. Abu Yahya al-Libi, “Light and Fire in Elegezing the Martyr Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” (Alexandria, VA: IntelCenter, 2009). Available here: thesis.haverford.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10066/5135/AYL20060730.pdf.
2. Author interviews with Syed Saleem Shahzad, Islamabad, March 2010 and February 2011.
3. Washington privately leaned on Al Jazeera to stop airing these well-made films, and when that failed, the United States created its own Arabic-language network called al-Hurra (The Free One), but it could not find sufficient Arabic-speaking contributors, leading to erratic broadcasts strewn with errors.
4. Letter from Abu Anas al-Libi to Osama bin Laden dated October 13, 2010, recovered from Abbottabad, declassified and released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence [hereafter ODNI] in March 2016, dni.gov/index.php/resources/bin-laden-bookshelf.
5. Report from Atiyah (Sheikh Mahmud) to Osama, forwarding a long message from supporting sheikhs in the “Arabian Penensula.” Undated. Released by West Point scholars in 2012. Don Rassler, et. al., “Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Laden Sidelined?” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, May 3, 2012, document reference SOCOM-2012-0000014-HT.
6. Ashraf Akhras was celebrating his marriage to Nadia al-Alami, alongside hundreds of Jordanian and Palestinian guests.
7. Zarqawi justified the operations by saying that Israelis and Western businessmen would be present at the function.
8. They were assisted by nonconventionals and specialists including U.S. Delta Force operatives, Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and British Special Air Service troops and paratroopers, all of them supported by the U.S. Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and the U.S. Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron. The group split into four regional commands: West, North, South, and Black.
9. This video was released in April 2006. Mary Anne Weaver, “The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” Atlantic, July/August 2006.
10. Yvonne Ridley, Torture: Does It Work? (Military Studies Press, 2016).
11. The GID’s involvement in this operation was confirmed to the authors by a former senior officer, name withheld at his request, and by Hassan Abu Haniya, in interviews, Amman, October 2014. The same allegation was also made by Captain Ali bin Zeid to the future Camp Chapman suicide bomber Humam al-Balawi (see Joby Warrick, The Triple Agent [New York: Random House, 2011]) and to the authors in an interview with bin Zeid’s widow, Fida Dawani, Amman, October 2014.
12. The spokesman was U.S. General William B. Caldwell. See Mark Bowden, “The Ploy,” Atlantic, May 2007.
13. This statement appeared online on July 30, 2006, and is available at thesis.haverford.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10066/5135/AYL20060730.pdf.
14. According to the Iranian passports they carried, he was Mohammad Reza Ranjbar Rezaei (aged thirty-nine), traveling with his wife Cheshmnaz Fotohiashena Abad (forty) and their children Mohammad (nine), Fatemeh (seven), Ali (six), and Leila (four). For more details on his journey and capture, see Rusen Cakir, “The Story of al Qaeda Militant Abdul Hadi al Iraqi, a Kurd from Mosul,” rusencakir.com, November 25, 2014, translated into English by Turgay Bayindir, en.rusencakir.com/The-story-of-al-Qaeda-militant-Abdul-Hadi-al-Iraqi-a-Kurd-from-Mosul/2998.
15. His coup in 1999 had been supported by an electorate sickened by years of corruption and weak civilian rule, most recently the administration of Nawaz Sharif, who, while prime minister, had run to the United States asking for asylum for himself and his family.
16. Author interview with Ali Jan Aurakzai, Rawalpindi, June 2014.
17. Author telephone interview with Robert Grenier, March 2015.
18. Journalists were banned from filming the event, but Syed Saleem Shahzad, the controversial Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times Online, who some accused of being too close to militant factions, sneaked a few photographs. Author interview with Shahzad, February 2011.
19. Author interview with Aurakzai.
20. The seminary was called Zai-ul Uloom Taleemal Qu’ran.
21. Andy Worthington, “World Exclusive: New Revelations about the Torture of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi,” andyworthington.co.uk, June 18, 2009.
22. Mark Mazzetti, “U.S. Says C.I.A. Destroyed 92 Tapes of Interrogations,” New York Times, March 2, 2009.
23. See the full report here: www.aclu.org/files/assets/cia_release20100415_p19-27.pdf.
24. Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility, “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,” July 29, 2009.
25. This missing twenty-one-hour period is also referred to in the Senate Torture Report, which noted that a review of the catalog of videos in May 2004 found that recordings were missing, 44. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), The Official Senate Report on CIA Torture Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2015), 25 [hereafter Senate Torture Report].
26. See “Gitmo Files: Mustafa Ahmad Al Hawsawi,” Wikileaks, wikileaks.org/gitmo/prisoner/10011.html; and the Senate Torture Report.
27. Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility, “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,” July 29, 2009.
28. White House Office of the Press Secretary, “President Discusses Creation of Military Commissions to Try Suspected Terrorists,” September 6, 2006, georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060906-3.html.
29. “ ‘Platinum’ Captives Held at Off-limits Gitmo Camp,” Miami Herald, July 7, 2008.
30. Associated Press, “Prisoner Tells of ‘Mental Torture’ in Guantánamo Bay’s ‘Camp 7,’ ” NBC News, June 2, 2016.
31. Jason Leopold, “Emails Shed Light on New Guantánamo Policy Surrounding Detainees Legal Mail,” Truthout, November 3, 2011.
32. The case was Rasul v. Bush. Author telephone interview with Abu Zubaydah’s legal counsel, Joseph Margulies, who also represented Rasul, September 2016.
33. British lawyer Clive Stafford Sm
ith, who has represented dozens of Guantánamo detainees, described this journey in his book Eight O’Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantánamo Bay (New York: Nation Books, 2008).
34. In his book Enhanced Interrogation, Dr. James Mitchell claimed that Zubaydah had lost the eye due to botched plastic surgery performed in Pakistan shortly before he was captured. James Mitchell and Bill Harlow, Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America (New York: Crown, 2016).
35. Abu Zubaydah’s prison diary was obtained by the authors from his lawyer Joseph Margulies, who applied to have it declassified. The diary amplifies the International Committee for the Red Cross file on the prisoner’s treatment and is reprinted here with his authorization. Author copies.
36. Author interviews with General Musharraf, Karachi, February 2015, and Aurakzai.
37. Ibid.
38. The book unashamedly cast Musharraf as a brave soldier who had dodged bullets and suicide bombers on behalf of his people. Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006). Author meeting with General Bajwa, Rawalpindi, February 2012.
39. Author interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai, who reported from the scene, Peshawar, February 2015. Also see Chris Woods, “Drone Strikes in Pakistan: Over 160 Children Reported among Drone Deaths,” Bureau of Investigative Journalism, August 11, 2011. The subsequent demonstration took place near Khar.
40. Author interview with Aurakzai.
41. Al Qaeda was furious about the Chinagai drone strike and somebody had to pay. But according to long-standing arrangements between Washington and Islamabad, the CIA had sent monthly faxes to ISI headquarters, outlining the areas where unmanned aircraft would operate and listing high-value targets under surveillance. If the ISI did not issue any specific objection, the U.S. operations went ahead without any further consultation, classified either as “signature strikes” if they had just general information of a suspected gathering or “targeted” if they were aimed at particular individuals. For the past year or more, al-Zawahiri and the villages around Damadola that harbored Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters had regularly featured on the list, so there was little Musharraf could do now to complain that the United States had deliberately blown his peace plan to smithereens. For more information on U.S. drone policy at this time, see Mark Mazzetti, The Way of the Knife (New York: Penguin, 2013).
42. Report from Atiyah to Osama, forwarding a long message from supporting sheikhs in the “Arabian Penensula.” Undated. Released by West Point scholars in 2012. Don Rassler, et al., “Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Laden Sidelined?” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, May 3, 2012, document reference SOCOM-2012-0000014-HT.
43. Cakir, “The Story of al Qaeda Militant Abdul Hadi al Iraqi.”
44. Testimony of Rangzieb Ahmed, obtained by authors from CAGE, a London-based detainee rights advocacy group; also author interview with Asim Qureshi, CAGE, May 2014.
45. Ahmed claimed that he had been tortured by the ISI agents there, with one man in a suit who was a heavy smoker pulling out his fingernails with pliers and beating him with a piece of wood, while another agent of Afghani origin, who spoke Pashto and had curly hair, watched. Twice, Ahmed was hooked up to a lie detector and asked about known Al Qaeda locations, including the Tariq Road safe house and a branch of KFC in Rawalpindi formerly used by Khalid Shaikh Mohammad as a drop-off point.
46. Although Ahmed and Ghul were taken to the interrogation center almost every day, they did not know its location, as they were always hooded and shackled during the journey. Ahmed, who claimed to have come to Pakistan to help with the earthquake relief efforts after October 2005, was asked repeatedly by British and American intelligence officials about al-Zawahiri and bin Laden. “They asked about my links to Al Qaeda and what I had been doing in Haripur,” he said. He was shown pictures of other suspects, including Azzam the American. There were hints that the foreign officials were on the right track when they questioned him about Abu Hamza Rabia, the dead courier. “The main questions centred around Hamza Rabia, like where I had met him, what instructions I had received, what plans, what attacks.” Ahmed was also shown three diaries. “They said that there were codes in the books … they asked me what the codes in the diary were.” All his answers were noted down in small reporter pads, and the CIA team was the most insistent. “There were usually three in a team, two males and one female.” Ahmed claimed they disregarded his complaints about the torture.
47. Letter to “Honorable Shaykh,” September 4, 2006. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
48. Stephen Negus, “Call for Sunni State in Iraq,” Financial Times, October 15, 2006. Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, icasualties.org/Iraq/Fatalities.aspx.
49. Will McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State (New York: St. Martin’s, 2015).
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Undated letter to Osama from the Jihad and Reform Front in Iraq, a coalition of Sunni insurgent groups opposed to the emergence of Islamic State in Iraq. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
53. The letter also puzzled at the appointment of Abu Ayyub, describing him as “much more bloodthirsty and more enthusiastic about takfir [the practice of one Muslim declaring another Muslim as a nonbeliever]” than Zarqawi. Abu Ayyub was authorizing the killing of “sheikhs and proselytizers” at will. He was “tyrannical in his dealings with others and has no patience for anyone who disagrees with him.”
54. In December 2006. McCants, The Isis Apocalypse.
55. These rules were announced in an audio statement on March 13, 2007.
56. Al-Zawahiri’s output increased to ninety-seven original videos in 2007, a sixfold increase from 2005.
57. In December 2007. McCants, The Isis Apocalypse.
58. Al Qaeda video supremo Azzam the American also warned al-Zawahiri against endorsing Abu Umar al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq, describing it as a “fictitious state.”
59. As described by SEAL Team Six members Matthew Bissonnette (pen name Mark Owen), in his book with Kevin Maurer, No Easy Day (New York: Dutton, 2012), and Robert O’Neill, in an interview with Phil Bronstein, “The Shooter,” Esquire, March 2013. Also per author interviews with bin Laden family members and relatives of Maryam.
60. Ibid.
61. A water pistol can be seen in the ISI’s photograph of Ibrahim’s body at Abbottabad.
62. Letter dated June 28, 2007, from Khadija, who addressed her brother Khalid by his code name Abu Sulayman. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
63. Azaz Syed, The Secrets of Pakistan’s War on Al-Qaeda (Islamabad: Al-Abbas International, 2014).
64. Author interviews with Mahfouz Ibn El Waleed, Nouakchott, December 2014, January 2015, and June 2015.
65. Osama referred to this death and that of Mohammed al-Islambouli’s wife in an undated letter to Atiyah Abd al-Rahman written after Saad’s death. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
66. Standing with Abu Ghaith was Thirwat Shihata, a core member of al-Zawahiri’s group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and an experienced operational planner. He, too, had been in Iran since 2002.
67. Saad took the new arrivals on a tour. Block 300 was significantly larger than Block 100. In its basement were four apartments, along with a mosque, a medical clinic, and a classroom. The girls played in the hallway of the basement out of sight of the men. The ground floor had two rows of much newer apartments, each with a large bedroom, a lounge, kitchen, and toilet. To one side of the compound were swings and to the other a small garden. Author i
nterviews with Mahfouz.
68. Ibid.; also author interviews with bin Laden family members.
69. Nothing more had ever been heard of Mohammed al-Hallabi after his convoy was ambushed at the Pakistan border in November 2001.
70. Multiple author interviews with Mahfouz, plus interviews with bin Laden family members who wish to remain anonymous.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid.
73. Letters from Osama to Atiyah. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
74. Huthaifa Azzam, then aged eighteen, had got out of the car shortly before his father and two brothers were killed. He believes strongly that al-Zawahiri ordered Abdullah Azzam’s assassination. Author interview, Amman, Jordan, December 2016.
75. The Sheikh was also annoyed with Saudi television channels that had been running stories claiming that Al Qaeda had “links to Iran.”
76. Osama letter to Atiyah, December 17, 2007. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
77. Author interviews with bin Laden family members. Khadija’s death was also referred to in Osama and Seham letters. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015 and March 2016. Also “Letter to Mom,” undated, ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in January 2017.
78. Umm Khalid (Seham) to Umm Abd al-Rahman (mother of Karima), December 16, 2007. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
79. Abu Abdallah al-Hallabi (Daood) to Seham, November 13, 2007. ODNI documents, Abbottabad released in March 2016.
80. Osama refers to this idea in several letters. ODNI documents, Abbottabad.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1. “CIA Bomber Tape Released,” CBS News, March 1, 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4PcV8RTJ9Y.
2. Abu Abdallah al-Hallabi (Daood) to “the Father, the ulema and the beloved Shakyh,” October 20, 2008, recovered from Abbottabad, declassified and released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence [hereafter ODNI] in May 2015, dni.gov/index.php/resources/bin-laden-bookshelf.
