The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [247]
“I’m talking about damage to the inside, so they would drown on their own blood.”
“I can’t make a decision on whether to accept you and your friend into al-Qaeda now,” I told him. “I need to confer with my al-Qaeda superiors first. In the meantime, you should continue your training, and I will be in touch.”
“Shukran,” he said: thank you. I guessed he felt that speaking Arabic would demonstrate his commitment to the cause.
The fact that I was doing the undercover mission was strange: Shah’s case belonged to a different squad, and I was a supervisory special agent—which meant that I was running my own squad and had my own agents to oversee. But the squad handling Shah had asked me to help. They didn’t have anyone else available who knew enough about al-Qaeda or had sufficient training to fool Shah.
I spent weeks preparing for the mission, reviewing the case information, refreshing my knowledge of al-Qaeda and its recruitment process, and practicing what I would say in different scenarios. I started by researching everything known about Shah: his thoughts, ideas, and motivations. Next I determined where he fit into the operation, and then I worked on developing my cover story, down to the smallest details: I would need to answer with confidence and show no hesitation.
Undercover operations don’t allow room for mistakes. If the wannabe terrorists find out who you really are, odds are they’ll kill you. Not only are you a representative of the Western oppressor that they’ve been professing a desire to kill, but you’re now the obstacle between them and their jihad. If you’re lucky, you’ll escape alive, but the operation will have failed, and the chance to catch them incriminating themselves will be lost.
In December 2003 Shah had been arrested by the City of Yonkers police for petty larceny, and during a search of his vehicle the police found phone numbers belonging to Seifullah Chapman—a member of an extremist group in northern Virginia, the Virginia Jihad Network, who was convicted in March 2004 of providing material support to a Pakistani terrorist group—and a second individual, who was known to have trained in foreign terrorist camps. Shah had also made inquiries in mosques and religious stores in New York about joining al-Qaeda—and those questions eventually reached us as well.
On December 16, 2003, we sent an informant whom I will call Saeed (a former convict and Black Panther) to befriend Shah under the guise of seeking bass lessons. Saeed succeeded, and as their friendship grew, Shah enlisted Saeed’s help in finding a location for a martial arts studio where he could “teach the brothers . . . knives and stars and stuff like that” so that they could carry out terrorist activities. Shah also told Saeed of a network he had of others who also wanted to help al-Qaeda.
In January 2004 Saeed told Shah that he had “important news”: he was in contact with an al-Qaeda recruiter from the Middle East who was interested in someone who could train a small group of fighters in hand-to-hand combat and martial arts. The brother’s name was Ali, he was originally from Canada, and he was in fact bin Laden’s personal representative in North America.
Shah said that he was interested and added that he had a close associate, Rafiq Sabir (also known as “the Doctor”), a Columbia University–trained emergency room doctor, living in Boca Raton, Florida, who would be interested in participating as well. He told Saeed to present himself and Sabir to Ali as a “package”—between the two of them, they could provide al-Qaeda with both martial arts services and medical services.
Saeed said he’d pass on the message and later told Shah that the recruiter was willing to meet Shah alone, and that the meeting