For months the men talked about "the education of the youth," by which they meant training in the camps, and the constant skirmishes between those in the camps and local Kurdish forces. But the tension on both sides of the Mediterranean grew significantly in the first months of 2003, as the likelihood of a US invasion of Iraq increased daily. As the Bush administration was trying to build a coalition and the Pentagon was amassing US forces in the areas surrounding Iraq, Ansar al Islam was getting ready for its most important battle. The leadership of the group immediately realized that if a conflict should take place, Ansar al Islam would be one of the first targets of the American forces. In his speech before the UN Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell had named the presence of Ansar al Islam as one of the main reasons for going to war against Iraq, and US officials frequently called the organization the missing link between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda.
Though the prospect of being pounded by American B-52s was hardly pleasant, Ansar al Islam and Zarqawi also realized that the invasion of Iraq would provide them with an unprecedented opportunity, allowing them to come face to face with American troops and avenge the shameful defeat that al Qaeda had suffered in Afghanistan. Ansar al Islam intended to transform Kurdistan and the whole of Iraq from a place of training to a battlefield where American forces would be attacked. And the group began to prepare itself to inflict as much damage as possible. In March 2003, just a few days before the beginning of the war, Italian authorities intercepted the following conversation between Merai in Milan and Mullah Fouad in Damascus:21
Merai: This week some "guests" will come to you.
Fouad: I agree with you, but the guests have to be smart and prepared
Merai: No, good people who love you.
Fouad: I don't need good people, I need people who are smart and prepared in khataf [literally "kidnapping," "hijacking"].
Merai: OK, what do you want me to do? You want me to hit the ground to take out a watermelon? [an idiomatic expression]
Fouad: No, worse.... We urgently need those that you know.... I want people who can hit the ground and make the iron come out of it. Look for those who were in Japan.
Merai: I have one. He is sick, he was already sick and tired.... There are people who are ready ... you'll be fine with them, because they have the good ...
Though they used coded language, it is clear that Mullah Fouad is asking Merai to recruit suicide bombers. "Those who were in Japan" refers to kamikazes, the Japanese suicide pilots of World War II. As the conflict with the United States approached, Ansar al Islam was ratcheting up its efforts to train suicide bombers, a tactic it had never employed before Arab militants had joined the group.
The phone call alarmed Italian investigators, who were almost ready to close in on the cell. A few days later, authorities were forced to wrap up the investigation and arrest the members of the network, as the arrival of an important radical from London marked significant new developments. On March 23, they overheard an unidentified speaker from Syria giving precise instructions to Merai in Milan about the man's visit, and suspected that someone important was coming.2'
Merai: Are the men I sent you still there or did they leave?
Man: Not yet, they haven't left yet.
Merai: This week I'll send you three or four.
Man: Don't worry, we need up to forty, but good as those from before.
Merai: Yes, yes, no problem ... look, they are of different nationalities.
Man: Listen, you will be contacted by a brother from Sudan ... sorry, Somali, his name is Mohammed ...
Merai: Tell me, Abu Ali, Somali or Sudanese?
Man: Somali, Somali ... when he will contact you be at his complete disposal. Whatever he asks you, give it to him, whatever he needs, find it.
Merai: I am at your service, God willing.
In the following days Merai received several phone calls from the mysterious Somali man, who called as he traveled from London to Milan through Holland. The men set up a meeting at Milan's Central Station on the 24th. Once in Milan, the Somali again called Merai. Not knowing each other, both men described what they were wearing and agreed to get together at an Internet cafe near the station. But the agents from DIGOS, who had intercepted the conversation in real time, approached the Somali man as he was walking off the train; they staged a routine check to see who he was, then let him go.22
Authorities immediately realized that the Somali visitor was, indeed, an important figure in the European al Qaeda network. The man was Maxamed Cabdullah Ciise, an experienced operative who specialized in fund-raising for al Qaeda. According to information passed on by Scotland Yard, Ciise engaged in sophisticated money-laundering schemes, transferring large amounts between London and Somalia through Sweden and Dubai. Ciise, who was a member of al Ittihad, a Somali terrorist group closely linked to al Qaeda, had also been involved in financing the November 2002 terrorist attacks in Mombasa, Kenya." Suicide bombers drove a jeep into the lobby of an Israeli-owned resort hotel, killing fifteen people and wounding more than eighty. Simultaneously, terrorists fired two surface-to-air missiles at an Israeli airliner taking off from the Mombasa airport but missed.
What was a big shot like Ciise doing in Milan? Merai had been ordered to help him with everything he wanted. But what did he want? The Italians had to wait only a few minutes to know the answer to these questions. Worried about having been stopped by Italian police the moment he stepped off the train, Ciise decided to call his contact as soon as he met Merai. Ciise used Merai's phone to call a man named Abderrazak, expressing his frustrations and his fears that Merai and his helpers were under surveillance, and he repeatedly asked for reassurance. Abderrazak, whom Italian authorities at the time were unable to identify, tried several times to calm Ciise, telling him that Merai was a trusted operative and that he would find him what he needed. The conversation also revealed that Ciise had come to Italy to obtain false documents that he intended to use to travel to Syria and then to Iraq.24
The days following Ciise's arrival were particularly hectic for both the terrorists and investigators. For their part, Merai and his group tried to procure state-of-the-art documents for the Somali man, but encountered unexpected problems. Ciise, whose fear of being followed by police is surpassed only by his disdain for the inefficiency of Merai's group, divided his time between Milan's two radical mosques (the ICI and Via Quaranta) and Internet cafes, viewing every face around him as a possible police officer tailing him. At the same time, agents were working around the clock to monitor every move made by members of Merai's cell and by the cautious Somali.
As the days went by, Ciise's patience ran short; he kept calling the mysterious Abderrazak, who seemed to be the leader of the entire network. Abderrazak finally put Ciise in contact with another operative based in Italy. The man he called lived in Reggio Emilia, a city just a few kilometers east of Parma, where the Kurds of Ansar al Islam operated. According to Abderrazak, the man, a Moroccan national named Mohammed Daki, was "a specialist" in documents and would solve Ciise's problem. Ciise, having given up on Merai and wishing to leave Italy as soon as possible, traveled right away to Reggio Emilia to meet Daki, a man who was completely unknown to Italian authorities.25
Tailing Ciise proved to be an extraordinary challenge for DIGOS, which had to put dozens of agents on the case to get the better of the Somali's brilliant countersurveillance techniques. While in Milan, Ciise used all the tricks that experienced al Qaeda operatives learned in Afghanistan. He would walk up a street, pacing himself, then stop to look back, then enter a phone booth and stay there for few minutes, looking outside. He would go down small side streets, then suddenly walk back in the opposite direction. He went down to the metro platform but did not get into the first train-which the agents were forced to take so that the Somali would not spot them immediately as the only other people still in the station. On one occasion Ciise enlisted the help of another militant who walked twenty or thirty meters behind him, trying to see if any
body was following.26 While in Reggio Emilia, he became even more cautious, as he and Daki almost never left Daki's dwelling. When they did, they always looked around, staying on any given bus for only a few stops to flush out anyone who might be following them. While riding the bus, they scrutinized the faces of all the passengers.'
On March 30, the documents for Ciise were finally ready, but by then, despite the carefulness of the agents, the Somali realized that he was being followed. The entire network panicked and made plans to leave the country. Abderrazak, the mysterious man still coordinating the group's operations from abroad, told Daki to go to France; Ciise prepared to go to Germany, where he would join with other "brothers" to go to Damascus and meet Mullah Fouad. Merai and one of the Kurds in Parma made plans to escape to Syria.28
The group's sudden flurry of activity forced DIGOS to close the investigation and arrest all the members before they fled the country. Police in Reggio Emilia and Parma moved to take Daki and the two Kurds into custody, while authorities in Milan arrested Merai and Ciise. No documents were found, as the men managed to hide them inside the Via Quaranta mosque before their arrests. But additional evidence was provided without their knowledge by the two arrested in Milan. Authorities had the forethought to leave Merai and Ciise in a room in the police station in which a microphone had been hidden. Their conversation provided a fuller view both of their activities and of their religious fanaticism and deep hatred.29
Ciise: What a situation!
Merai: God sees them. You stay calm.
Ciise: I am calm, but inside of me there is a lot of confusion.
Merai: I tell you again, everything is in the hands of God. Now we are here. Even if they take us to San Vittore ...
Ciise: What is San Vittore?
Merai: It is a penitentiary, but there we will find the best brothers .. . those brothers who never abandon you.3o
Ciise: At this point let's pray to God. Where are we now?
Merai: This is the waiting room at DIGOS.
Ciise: Ah, that is what they are called?
Merai: DIGOS. They come right after the security services.
Ciise: If only I had more time today I wouldn't be here, I would be in Paris.
Merai: Don't make me feel guilty.
Ciise: No, no. It's destiny, there have been problems since I came to Italy. I am not blaming you. We are fighters.
Merai: Good, good, for the best.
Ciise: Did they put anything in the food?
Merai: We don't eat the sweets of the enemies of God, because they are sons of dogs.
Ciise: Tell me sincerely, how many times have you been here before?
Merai: Never at DIGOS, I have been to the Foreigners' Office [i.e., the Ufficio Stranieri, where aliens must apply for residence permits].
Ciise: We don't know each other.
Merai: No need to say that. They already asked me if I knew you and I said that I met you at the mosque.
Ciise: OK, let's stick to that version, because they have nothing on me. When they asked me why I was here I told them I came to find my cousin, one of the family that I am desperately trying to find. But, honestly, there is something wrong here. I am surprised about the thing with the bag. How did they know that it was there? How did they bring me the bag? Why are they asking me about the training camps in Syria? I am speechless.
Merai: You know, they are trying to make you speak, they make you believe they know everything but they don't know anything. I have many brothers who are in jail and they got five to fifteen years, in Italy, in Bosnia, all over the world.
Ciise: So there is a link. Maybe you are under surveillance!
Merai: Listen, brother, if I had been discovered I wouldn't be here. I would already be in jail. You have to know that, sometimes, spies come to the mosque, a spy comes and ... when they see a new face they want to know who he is, where he is from ... they try to collect information and then they go tell them ...
Ciise: I am telling you that I saw them from the first day, even the day when we got arrested and they put me in the car and they put the gun against me, they told me that they have gathered information on me and they have asked the Americans. I told them they were enemies of God, to take their hands off of me. Then they asked me what my real nationality was.
Merai: Fool them, tell them you are Egyptian. Thank God they did not find the passports. At home I have just a few things, I just have money, but the rest is hidden, but ... at home I just have a few euros ...
Ciise: They don't scare me, you always have to keep the faith in God.
Merai: I recited the Quran the whole night.
Ciise: So did I.
Merai: They just wait for us to say that we are mujahideen and they are happy, but since they have nothing let's fool them.
Ciise: The Moroccan passports?
Merai: Nothing, when they got us I had nothing on me, I had passed everything to Brahim.31
Ciise: Of all those you introduced me to, he is the smartest.
Merai: He is smart and generous, quiet and good, he knows how to behave in these situations.
Ciise: And what about the Moroccan passport they had prepared for you and that they passed you while we were sitting?
Merai: Brahim has it, he knows what to do. I am not stupid, I did not keep it with me. When we get out of here you disappear immediately and so do I. If you need help, Brahim knows where the money is hidden. I never had anything on me. If you want to take the passports, take them. He knows all my safe houses and my movements. Sometimes even we forget the places where we hide things. He is a tomb.
Ciise: First of all let's get out of here. Then I'll try to go to Romania, because I have support there. Sorry if I ask you this question again, but are you sure this is the first time they've taken you here? You are not under surveillance?
Merai: I would know if I were under surveillance. I know most of them. And the youth also watches the mosque for me and keeps me informed.
Ciise: I have doubts about the damned phones. If it is so it is a big problem because the others are waiting for me ... Abderrazak, Abu Zaied, Abdelkarim, these are wanted by the majority of secret services, especially Abu Zaied by the French.
Merai: I don't think so. Because I don't use the telephone a lot, I change the card continuously, and the phone calls we made together we made them from outside.
Ciise: I hope it is so, that they don't have any phone calls, because otherwise it would be a big problem for the brothers, but I think everything is under control.
Merai: It could be. Who isn't under surveillance? It's enough that they see you once and they check your movements.
Ciise: No, brother. Now that I remember well I remember one who told me that it is better to go Afghanistan or Iran rather than Quaranta [i.e., the mosque on Via Quaranta]; this is the most dangerous place after London, because it is known in the world for the preparation of terrorists and for logistical and financial support, it is known because it is targeted. The whole world knows Quaranta.
Merai: Where are you coming from? From Great Britain. And so? Don't worry, they don't have anything. They asked me about Lotfi, Adel, Hammada, Mullah Fouad, Amin, most of them are either in jail or dead. I think their target is Mullah Fouad.
Ciise: I am not worried for myself, I am worried for the others, for the brothers there who are waiting for me. I'll never go to London again because I am flagged over there.
[Short pause.]
Merai: The enemies of God, sons of dogs, stupid questions. Have you been to Iran? Yes, so what? Where is the problem if I have been to Iran? Have you been to Syria? Stupid questions ...
Ciise: They told me I was Sudanese.
Merai: Tell them yes, no, maybe, I forgot, make fun of them. These people here ... servants of the Americans, they are servants!
Ciise: Yes, yes!
Merai: But they are terrorized by us. Sooner or later, maybe tomorrow morning, they'll have news. Because both the Americans and the Israelis, sooner or later,
will pay, maybe tomorrow morning, who knows.... When they kill it's OK, but if we tell them we are going to Iran or Syria they ask us what we are doing there. Now they put Iraq in the middle, the dogs of the Americans and of the Israelis, may God damn them, also their allies, included the Italian army, whatever they ask them they are at their full disposal, the Americans have them on a leash.... If they ask me if I went to fight to Afghanistan I tell them yes. So what? Is there a problem? They are armed and they are afraid of us.
Ciise: They ... whatever the Americans ask ... not just them, but any other country, they serve them.
Merai: Very soon they will have news, a good thing to see ... and they will pay because they are dogs, they are like dogs, they are sons of dogs, they are damned, they are enemies of God ... the others in front and they are on the leash. They have no value. They are dogs! They are devils! The American power does not scare me. Are you afraid of them? You anyway, whatever they ask you, you don't answer. Or you tell them you don't know. You tell them that the Quran answers.
Ciise: The enemy of God came to touch the Quran.
Merai: And you let him?
Ciise: No.
Merai: Tell him to leave and not to touch it with a finger.
Ciise: He told me he wanted to check it and I told him I was going to open it, page by page. He made me open it three times.
Merai: Enemies of God. I am sure they will ask you about people who went to Afghanistan, they want the head [i.e., the chief]. Damned. They love life, I want to be a martyr, I live for jihad. In this life there is nothing, life is afterward, brother, the feeling that is impossible to describe is dying a martyr. God, help me to be your martyr!
Al Qaeda in Europe Page 26
