The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [266]
John O’Neill: Veteran FBI official who, on January 1, 1997, became the special agent in charge of the National Security Division in the FBI’s New York office. He picked me to be the case agent of several important investigations, and became a friend and mentor. He left the FBI on August 22, 2001, to work in the World Trade Center, where he died on 9/11.
Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-Owhali (aliases: Moath al-Balucci and Khaled Saleem bin Rasheed): Al-Qaeda operative who joined the group in 1996 as part of the Northern Group; recruited with the help of Muhannad bin Attash. Tasked with being a suicide bomber for the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, he didn’t end up killing himself, and was later interrogated (separately) by John Anticev and Stephen Gaudin. He confessed his role and was later convicted, and is serving life in prison.
Jose Padilla (alias Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir): American al-Qaeda member who, with Binyam Mohamed, intended to attack the United States with a dirty bomb. [4 words redacted] learned about his intentions during [1 word redacted] interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, and then our squad tracked him across the world before arresting him as he landed in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. The Bush administration publicly exaggerated Padilla’s capabilities. He was convicted and sentenced to seventeen years and four months in prison.
Frank Pellegrino: FBI special agent from the I-49 squad who was the case agent for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed but who was prevented by the CIA from interrogating him.
Mohammed al-Qahtani: Al-Qaeda member who attempted to enter the United States on August 4, 2001, but was refused entry by a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agent. After 9/11 he was arrested in Afghanistan and taken to Guantánamo, where a fingerprint check identified him. He was taken from the FBI and subjected to coercive interrogation techniques, which didn’t yield any new information. He is being held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Ghalib al-Qamish: Head of the Political Security Organization in Yemen whom we worked with during the USS Cole investigation and in investigations into, and after, 9/11.
Ibrahim al-Qosi (full name: Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi; alias Abu Khubaib al-Sudani): Al-Qaeda operative who was with bin Laden from the start and who served as an accountant for the organization. He is married to the daughter of Abdullah Tabarak. I identified him at Guantánamo and gained his cooperation and confession. Before his trial, he entered a guilty plea.
Fahd al-Quso (alias Abu Hathayfah al-Adani): Member of al-Qaeda in Yemen who was tasked with videotaping the Cole operation. He confessed his role to Robert McFadden and me, and also told us how he and Ibrahim al-Nibras delivered $36,000 to Khallad in Malaysia. We passed this information to the CIA and asked if they knew anything about Khallad’s movements in the region; they replied that they didn’t. After 9/11 we discovered that the CIA had known about Khallad’s movements, and that he met with Quso and Nibras after coming from al-Qaeda’s 9/11 planning summit in Malaysia. The $36,000 was probably used by 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi to buy their tickets to the United States and for spending money there. Today he is free in Yemen and remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list.
Omar Abdul Rahman: Known as the Blind Sheikh (childhood diabetes left him sightless), he led al-Gamma’a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group), a rival of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad. After being imprisoned in, and then expelled from, Egypt in connection with the 1981 assassination of Sadat, he made his way to the United States to take control of Abdullah Azzam’s U.S. operations. He was able to enter the United States after being given a visa by a CIA official, despite being on the U.S. State Department terrorist watchlist. He was arrested in the FBI’s Operation