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“Yes,” Abu Jandal replied, “the sheikh often helps with training. I remember once we went into the desert and he gave us a training session he called Desert Fox, on how to maneuver at night in the dessert. At another point, he took us to the desert on a very hot day and told us to run to the top of one hill in the sand and back. When we returned, he told us, ‘Your path is as difficult and hard as running, but at the end, as on the peak of the hill after conquering it, it is God’s paradise.’ The men were all inspired.”

There were exercises where trainees learned how to hijack planes and were taught assassination techniques. In one exercise they built a skeleton base behind the Khaldan camp and raised an American flag on one of the buildings. Trainees were told to imagine that the base was an American base and to attack it.

Another topic we covered was how al-Qaeda planned an attack, including who would be involved and what the different stages would be. Usually bin Laden met with his military committee—its head, Mohammed Atef, and others, including Abu Mohammed al-Masri and Saif al-Adel. He also met with the consultative committee, which included Sa’eed al-Masri, Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Abu Jandal added that if there was to be a major operation, senior members had to be informed of the justification. Before the East African embassy bombings, they were told, as justification for bombing the embassies, that U.S. Operation Restore Hope had killed thirty thousand Muslims and that the embassies were centers of U.S. intelligence in East Africa.

While on the subject of the embassy bombings, we asked Abu Jandal what he knew about them. He confessed that he had asked bin Laden if he could be a suicide bomber for the attack—a contradiction of his earlier claim of opposing suicide attacks. Bin Laden told him, “This isn’t your time,” and counseled patience.

He told us what he knew about those involved, including Owhali. Abu Jandal remembered seeing Owhali’s picture in the paper under a fake name after the bombing. “I think the alias was Khalid Salem,” he said.

“What do you think we should do with him?” I asked.

“The best thing you can do is execute him,” Abu Jandal said.

“Why?”

“He wants to be a martyr and doesn’t want to live,” Abu Jandal said sincerely, in consideration of Owhali’s interests.

After discussing East Africa, Abu Jandal also told us what he knew about al-Qaeda’s London cell, headed by Fawwaz, former head of the Kenyan cell. When the news came that Fawwaz had been arrested, bin Laden was upset. “He told us that he had told Fawwaz to leave London and come to Afghanistan, but he didn’t listen,” Abu Jandal said, recounting what bin Laden had told him. Bin Laden went on to praise Fawwaz, according to Abu Jandal, and told him that Fawwaz was “a good example and had a capacity that we hope God will compensate us for in return.”

We moved on to other al-Qaeda operations, including the USS Cole bombing. The conversation started after we showed Abu Jandal a picture of Hassan al-Khamiri, one of the suicide bombers. He said he knew him: “This is Hassan, may God bless his soul.”

“How do you know he is dead?” I asked.

Abu Jandal replied, “A feeling inside me tells me he is.” He then admitted that he had seen Khamiri’s photo in a newspaper, identifying him as one of the Cole suicide bombers. Abu Jandal told us that Khamiri had been the emir of the al-Farouq training camp, hit by U.S. missiles in response to the East African embassy bombings. The experience had a devastating effect on Khamiri. Abu Jandal took us through the other operatives he knew who were involved in the Cole, such as Nashiri.

We discussed Americans he had met who had converted to Islam and had gone to Afghanistan. The conversation segued into a discussion of attempts by outside intelligence agencies to try to infiltrate al-Qaeda. Abu Jandal told us that one operative had been recruited by a foreign intelligence agency after being taken to a hotel room, shown pornographic movies, sodomized, and then blackmailed. He folded after