The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [120]
Bin Laden’s topic would vary depending upon who was present. When only close associates were in attendance, he spoke freely and at length. When he didn’t know his listeners, he was more guarded and hesitant. That Quso knew the difference was an indication that bin Laden came to view him as a trusted associate.
Quso slowly filled in more details about the attack. He said he had learned about it a month and a half beforehand. Badawi had approached him and said that he himself had been charged with the task of recording it but that he would “be busy that day”; so he had asked Quso to step in. He took him to the Tawahi apartment and taught him how to use the camera, a small Sony model. From the window Badawi pointed to two different dolphins (fueling stations) in the harbor and said that the attack would occur at one of them. Quso and Badawi then practiced recording the attack. Quso said that they deleted each practice recording but kept the same tape in the camera. There was also, Quso told us, a new, unused tape in a camera bag.
After their instruction sessions, Badawi gave Quso a pager and told him that he would receive a “010101” page alerting him that the operation was imminent. As soon as he received the page, he should head to the apartment and begin recording the action at the harbor. Badawi gave Quso a key to the apartment.
Quso told us that on the morning of the Cole bombing, a Thursday, he woke up early and went to the mosque to read the Quran until sunrise, and then went for morning prayers. There he met his friend Mohammed al-Durrama, who invited him back to his father’s house for breakfast. They ate and took a nap, sleeping till around 9:00 or 9:30, and proceeded to the mosque to study the Quran, as they had a test Monday. Only then, around 9:45 or 10:00, Quso said, did he notice the page; the pager had been on vibrate. He assumed that the page had come while he was sleeping.
He immediately packed up his things at the mosque and went to Badawi’s house, where the video camera was stored. Badawi wasn’t there—he was at the Ibn al-Amir Institute, a radical religious school in Sanaa—so Quso entered the house using a spare key Badawi had given him. He moved on to his father’s house, where the Tawahi apartment key was stored. While there, he also took a spare key for his sister’s house. He then jumped in a taxi and headed toward the Tawahi apartment.
When he reached the main street of Ma’alla, a neighborhood near Aden’s harbor, he heard a big explosion. He knew that it was the bombing of the ship, and that he had missed it. He told the driver to turn around, and he went to his sister’s house. No one was home, and he let himself in using the spare key. He hid the video camera and called Badawi in Sanaa. Quso reported to Badawi that the operation had taken place but that he hadn’t videotaped it.
Next Quso headed to al-Ridda Mosque for the noon prayer. On the way, he received a page from Badawi and stopped at a calling center near a taxi stand to get in touch with him. Badawi asked him to “report the news.” Quso told him that he heard ambulances heading toward the harbor but didn’t know anything else. Badawi asked Quso to go to his (Badawi’s) house to collect three bags and drop them off at his in-laws’. He told Badawi that he was nervous about the situation in Aden and was planning to head to Sanaa. Badawi agreed that it was a good idea. Their conversation was “anxious,” Quso said.
Later,