The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [53]
Among the group to whom bin Laden offered this justification were Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the 9/11 hijackers.
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Operation Challenge and the Manchester Manual
July 1999. “We’ve got one more important order of business,” said Tom Donlon, the I-40 squad leader. We had finished reviewing some operations we were running. Everything from the agenda had been covered, so I turned to Tom, curious about what he might have to say.
“It’s Ali’s birthday today,” he continued, looking at me with a smile, and on cue the squad broke into a rendition of “Happy Birthday,” and cupcakes were pulled out from where they had been hidden under the table.
As we were about to start eating, there was a knock at the door, and Tom Lang, the supervisor of the I-49 squad, stuck his head into the room. “I need to speak to you, Ali,” he said quietly. I was still splitting my time between the two squads, and Tom Lang was my I-49 boss.
“Happy birthday, Ali,” Tom Donlon said with a grin. “It looks like we’ll have to have the party without you.”
I followed Tom Lang into the hallway. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a big problem. The British are about to release Khalid al-Fawwaz, Adel Abdel Bary, and Ibrahim Eidarous, the al-Qaeda and EIJ leaders in London.”
“What? Why?”
Well-known Islamists and members of EIJ’s shura council, Bary and Eidarous had moved to London in 1996–97, signaling the growing importance of the city as a base for the terrorist movement. Al-Qaeda and EIJ were working toward a merger, and the two groups shared personnel, office space, and equipment. But they still had separate command structures; the EIJ shura council had not yet approved the merger, something Zawahiri was pushing hard for. Bary, appointed by Zawahiri in May 1996 to lead EIJ’s London cell, had subsequently been demoted to deputy with the arrival, in September 1997, of Eidarous. Former head of EIJ in Europe, Eidarous had been stationed in Baku, Azerbaijan, before the move to London.
Fawwaz was living in London as a Saudi dissident, having claimed political asylum in the UK. London was the ideal place for Fawwaz to operate, bin Laden had decided: almost every news outlet in the world had representation there, and the British authorities tended to turn a blind eye to the activity of Islamist radicals as long as they didn’t pose an obvious threat. This unofficial policy had earned London the name “Londonistan” from frustrated French intelligence officials and had brought scorn from law enforcement and intelligence services around the world. The policy wasn’t even popular among many in the UK security services, especially within Scotland Yard. The Anti-Terrorism Branch of the police, SO13, had been monitoring al-Qaeda and EIJ operatives and understood the threat they posed. However, Scotland Yard was overruled.
Although we had urged the British to arrest Fawwaz, Bary, and Eidarous in 1996, they had refused. As the men had done nothing but communicate with people the United States found “problematic,” and as they were not directly connected to terrorist attacks, there had been no evidence to support arresting them at that point. They had finally been arrested following the East African embassy bombings, based upon evidence of their connection to the attacks provided by the FBI.
“The British just told us that a judge said they don’t have enough evidence to keep them locked up anymore,” Tom said to me.
“What do you mean? There are piles of evidence—enough to keep them locked up for life. I’ve spent the last couple of months decoding documents and sending files to London with evidence for them to use.”
“I know, I know,” Tom said, shaking his head, “the fault isn’t on our end, but somehow the ball has been dropped, and now the British are saying that we