The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [218]
We took him back to the interrogation room. For about fifteen minutes no one said anything. He just stared to the side, visibly shaking. I didn’t say anything, not wanting him to think that we were taking advantage of his emotions. I poured him some water, which he drank.
“Thank you for the call,” he finally said, with tears in his eyes.
“A promise is a promise.”
“How is Abu Jandal doing?” Hamdan asked.
“He’s good,” I told him, “and he definitely helped himself by cooperating, as I’m sure you’re now fully aware.”
“Okay, I’ll give you everything you need.”
True to his word, Hamdan began to cooperate fully. We started off by talking about his childhood in Al-Therba, Yemen, where his father kept a grocery store. When Hamdan was about nineteen, his father died. An unsuccessful effort to take over the store was followed by the death of his mother. Hamdan moved to Sanaa, where he met Muhannad bin Attash at a mosque. Muhannad convinced him to go to Afghanistan and join what later became known as the Northern Group. When the members of the Northern Group met bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader said to Hamdan, “You are from the Hadramout region of Yemen.” Suitably impressed, Hamdan accepted an offer from bin Laden to serve as a driver.
For about six months he drove a truck hauling building materials for al-Qaeda’s new compound. “This was a test for me,” Hamdan told us. “They wanted to see whether I was committed and trustworthy. I was a hard worker, and after six months they appointed me as a driver for bin Laden’s convoy.”
“Who was the main driver?” I asked.
“At this point Saif al-Adel would drive bin Laden, and if he wasn’t driving, it would be Muhannad bin Attash or someone else who had been with bin Laden for a long time. I drove one of the other cars in the convoy.” Bin Laden paid him between two hundred and three hundred dollars a month and also covered his rent.
“When did you first drive bin Laden?”
“I was on the front, fighting the Northern Alliance, but they had the upper hand and were overrunning our lines. Saif al-Adel ran up to me and said that he didn’t want bin Laden at the front anymore—it was too dangerous. Saif said that he had to stay and fight, so I should drive bin Laden to safety. Which I did.”
“What was that battle?”
“I’m not sure, but Muhannad bin Attash was killed, and Khallad lost one of his legs.”
Over the next days and weeks, Hamdan told us everything he knew. We’d bring him fish sandwiches from McDonald’s, which he loved, and car and truck magazines, and he’d give us information about al-Qaeda. It became clear to us that Hamdan would be a great witness in trials prosecuting other al-Qaeda members. He had been present at many key moments in al-Qaeda’s history, and while driving bin Laden he had overheard many details of plots. He had been with bin Laden, for example, when the al-Qaeda leader had released his 1998 fatwa, and he was present when bin Laden gave his press conference following the ABC interview. “And that’s when I first met Zawahiri,” Hamdan told us.
“Did you like him?”
“My first impression was very positive. He was very friendly. Later I saw the problems with the Egyptians running al-Qaeda.”
Hamdan told us that he was present at al-Farouq when it was announced that al-Qaeda and Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad would formally merge. He was present when various al-Qaeda plots were discussed, and he detailed what he knew about those involved—as, for example, when Abu Abdul Rahman al-Muhajir, al-Qaeda’s chief explosives expert, explained to him exactly how the 1998 East African truck bombs worked.
He was also present when Abu Hafs al-Masri, al-Qaeda’s military commander, and bin Laden discussed making a video about the USS Cole attack. Nashiri himself had told Hamdan during a private conversation that he was the mastermind of the attack. We talked about al-Qaeda’s structure and the process by which the leadership selected people for different