The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [264]
Hassan al-Khamiri (alias Abu Yousef al-Ta’efi): Yemeni al-Qaeda member who was the emir of the al-Farouq training camp in Afghanistan until it was hit by U.S. missiles in response to the East African embassy bombings. That experience, along with his arrest in Yemen during the Bayt Habra car theft incident, pushed him to request a martyrdom operation from bin Laden. He was a suicide bomber, alongside Ibrahim al-Nibras, in the October 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole.
L’Houssaine Kherchtou (alias Mzungu): Early al-Qaeda member who served as bin Laden’s personal pilot and ran errands for the group. In Morocco Pat Fitzgerald, Jack Cloonan, Debbie Doran, and I convinced him to become a U.S. government asset and witness, and on September 21, 1999, he flew with us to the United States. Nicknamed “Joe the Moroccan,” he helped us understand al-Qaeda—picking up where Jamal al-Fadl left off (his knowledge stopped in 1996, when he defected)—and became a key prosecution witness in the trials of al-Qaeda members. He is in the U.S. Witness Protection Program.
Andre Khoury: FBI special agent whom I worked alongside in Yemen during the USS Cole investigation and in operations after 9/11. We interrogated several al-Qaeda members together, including Ahmed al-Hada.
Anas al-Liby (alias of Nazih Abdul Hamed al-Ruqai’i): Senior al-Qaeda operative and computer expert whose involvement in terrorist plots included casing the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in preparation for the 1998 bombing. We tracked him down to Manchester, England, but because of a lack of immediate evidence and British rules on holding suspects, he was released and escaped. Later, among his possessions, I found what became known as the Manchester Manual—an al-Qaeda handbook full of lessons for terrorist operatives. This manual was later translated into English and misunderstood by CIA contractors and used to justify their use of coercive interrogation techniques. In reality these techniques played into al-Qaeda’s tactics as outlined in the manual.
Mu’awiya al-Madani: Al-Qaeda operative who was a bodyguard for bin Laden and whom the al-Qaeda leader wanted to use as a suicide bomber for the USS Cole (in the end, he wasn’t used). I uncovered his martyrdom video in the DocEx program. He died in the May 12, 2003, al-Qaeda attack on the residential compounds in Riyadh.
Major Mahmoud (not his real name): Yemeni investigator whom we worked closely with during the USS Cole investigation and on investigations after 9/11.
Abu al-Khair al-Masri: Egyptian Islamic Jihad shura council member and a close associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri; joined al-Qaeda’s shura council following the March 2001 official merger of the two groups.
Sheikh Sa’eed al-Masri: Al-Qaeda shura council member who ranked just below Madani al-Tayyib on the financial committee, and who took over from him after he left the group. He refused to give L’Houssaine Kherchtou the $500 he needed to pay for his wife’s Cesarean section. He was killed by a U.S. drone attack in Pakistan in May 2010.
Ahmed Shah Massoud: Leader of the Northern Alliance who played a major role in defeating the Soviets and who was seen as the best hope for defeating the Taliban. He was assassinated by al-Qaeda on September 9, 2001, as a gift to the Taliban—helping to cement the relationship between the two groups.
Barry Mawn: Assistant director in charge of the New York office of the FBI during the USS Cole investigation.
Robert (Bob) McFadden: A Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agent who served as my partner during the investigation into the USS Cole bombing and in several subsequent investigations. Among the very successful interrogations we partnered in was that of Abu Jandal.