The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [252]
“So every time you got a detainee to cooperate, it was with a different approach?”
“Yes. With Abu Jandal, for example, we trapped him in his lies and his ego. With Ali al-Bahlul, bin Laden’s secretary and propagandist, we played on his commitment to al-Qaeda and his religious knowledge. With L’Houssaine Kherchtou the important point was al-Qaeda’s refusal to pay for a Cesarean section for his wife. And with [1 word redacted], it was his childhood feelings toward his brother that flipped him.
“To put it in different terms, think of dating. If you think there’s a magic formula and five words that will win you success, you’ve never been on a date. The same remark that somehow led one person to throw a drink in your face might have an entirely different effect on someone else. Everyone is different. And naturally you’ll have more success if you know all about your date’s likes and dislikes.
“Every detainee is different, and for each interview you need to have a unique strategy—based on knowledge.” That hit home.
Conclusion
“I’m back with the people I was with before,” Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti told an old friend on the phone, according to the Washington Post. It was the spring of 2010, and Abu Ahmed, a Kuwaiti of Pakistani origin, was being deliberately vague in response to his friend’s queries about what he was up to, with good reason: he was one of Osama bin Laden’s key links to the outside world, serving as a courier. Any slipup from him could lead intelligence officials to the world’s most wanted terrorist.
“May God facilitate,” was the reply from the friend, as if he understood what Abu Ahmed wasn’t saying. It also made sense to U.S. investigators listening in on the conversation: they had been monitoring the friend in the hope of snagging the Kuwaiti. Now they finally had his cell phone number.
In early 2002 detainees at Guantánamo told us about the last time they had seen bin Laden: escaping from the Tora Bora mountain range as Northern Alliance troops (backed by U.S. forces) advanced, accompanied only by Hamza al-Ghamdi, a Saudi, and Yousef al-Qanas, a Kuwaiti. Prior to arriving at Tora Bora, bin Laden had reshuffled his bodyguards and picked a group of nine trusted aides to accompany him, among them his son Uthman and the Saudi and Kuwaiti nationals.
At the same time, we also learned that a Kuwaiti operative (who would turn out to be Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti) was playing a central role in bin Laden’s new, post–Tora Bora al-Qaeda. The CIA and others in the U.S. intelligence community put possible acquaintances and probable hangouts under surveillance, hoping to find Abu Ahmed. This paid dividends in the spring of 2010, and that recorded conversation gave investigators his cell phone number.
The number was monitored, and an investigation—using assets, sources, data mining, detective work, and both old-fashioned tailing by CIA operatives and sleek surveillance using the latest high-level technology—eventually led to a one-acre compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
The city, less than forty miles from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, houses the Kakul Military Academy—a training academy often described as the Pakistani version of West Point or Sandhurst, the premier U.S. and UK military academies. Senior Pakistani officials, as well as important foreign visitors, often visit the academy. In February 2010, for example, U.S. general David Petraeus was a visitor.
Abbottabad was therefore, at first glance, one of the last places an al-Qaeda leader might be expected to hide, which, on reflection, is perhaps what made it attractive. While many intelligence analysts expected al-Qaeda’s leaders to be hiding in rural areas, several senior al-Qaeda members had already been captured in major cities: Ramzi Binalshibh, for example, was caught in Karachi, and his boss, KSM, in Rawalpindi.
The compound was surrounded by twelve-foot walls topped by barbed wire. It had no telephone or Internet connections, making it