The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [259]
Abu Zubaydah (full name: Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn Abu Zubaydah; alias Daood): Independent terrorist facilitator who served as the external emir of the Khaldan training camp and was the partner of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Liby. We first came across Abu Zubaydah during the Millennium Operation in Jordan. He was captured in a shootout in March 2002 and flown to a secret location, where [3 words redacted] interrogated him. We gained important actionable intelligence from him, including his identification of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of 9/11. He also told us about Jose Padilla and Binyam Mohamed’s so-called dirty bomb plot. [2 words redacted] Abu Zubaydah when final control of his interrogation was given over to CIA contractors employing coercive interrogation techniques. Their techniques failed, and in secret memos they tried to claim [1 word redacted] earlier successes as their own. He is being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Salman al-Adani: Al-Qaeda operative tasked with being one of the suicide bombers for the January 2000 attack on the USS The Sullivans—which failed because Adani and his fellow suicide bomber, Taha al-Ahdal, miscalculated the tide and their boat got stuck in the sand. He later died after jumping into a sewer to try to save a boy who had fallen in.
Saif al-Adel: Senior al-Qaeda operative who is a member of the shura council and heads the organization’s security committee. After bin Laden’s death, he was appointed the interim leader of al-Qaeda. He held that position until June 16, 2011, when Ayman al-Zawahiri officially became its new leader. He remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.
Taha al-Ahdal: An al-Qaeda operative who, with Salman al-Adani, was one of the intended suicide bombers for the aborted January 2000 attack on the USS The Sullivans. He was killed while fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Alvin (not his real name): CIA chief of operations in Jordan during the Millennium Operation. He went on to become the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center Sunni extremists chief.
Hussein Ansi: Head of Yemen’s Political Security Organization in Aden while we were investigating the bombing of the USS Cole. He appeared to be sympathetic to al-Qaeda and often tried to frustrate our investigation. After two of the al-Qaeda members involved in the attack, Fahd al-Quso and Jamal al-Badawi, “escaped” from jail in April 2003, we pressured the Yemenis to look into Ansi’s complicity, and he was eventually arrested, questioned, and sacked (but never prosecuted).
John Anticev: FBI Special Agent and I-49 squad member (and brother of Mike Anticev) who was the case agent for Operation Terrorstop, among other high-profile investigations. He also successfully interrogated both Mohamed Sadeek Odeh and Mohamed al-Owhali during the 1998 East African embassy bombings investigation, extracting from Owhali the phone number belonging to Ahmed al-Hada—which served as a virtual switchboard for al-Qaeda.
Mike Anticev: FBI special agent and I-49 squad member (and brother of John Anticev) who helped manage Jamal al-Fadl (“Junior”).
Andy Arena: Assistant agent in charge at the Detroit office who was appointed Pat D’Amuro’s deputy in investigating 9/11. He refused a request from the Bush administration to report links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Mohammed Atta: The leader of the 9/11 hijackers, he piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center. A member of the Hamburg cell, he roomed there with 9/11 coordinator Ramzi Binalshibh and hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi.
Abdullah Azzam: A Palestinian cleric who inspired many Muslims, including bin Laden, to join the mujahideen and fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. With bin Laden he founded Makhtab al-Khidmat (Bureau of Services), which channeled money and recruits into Afghanistan. He was a potential rival to bin Laden to head al-Qaeda and was assassinated on November 24, 1989. Many suspected that Ayman al-Zawahiri was behind