The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [63]
“Ali, I want you to head to Pakistan. We’ve got a potentially very important source who has come in, and I want you to evaluate him,” John O’Neill told me a few weeks later. It was early in 2000.
“Sure, boss, what’s the backstory?”
“It’s an [1 word redacted] man who approached an agent from the [4 words redacted] in [1 word redacted] saying that he had been working with [3 words redacted] in [3 words redacted] and didn’t like them, so he wanted to work with the U.S. against them.”
“That’s pretty convenient for us,” I said.
“You’d think, but the [8 words redacted]—the source didn’t have anything on drug trafficking, so he was out of their area of interest. But when the source met with the agency, he was told that they weren’t interested and they sent him away.”
“Why?”
“Apparently they think he is full of it and lying, but our FBI guy there, Chris Reimann, called me to say he thinks this guy is the real deal. Go to [1 word redacted],” John continued, “and meet him and evaluate him. And if he’s credible, get information and arrange a permanent way of contacting him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“One more thing. Make sure you thank him and let him know we’re appreciative.”
Mike Dorris, who was assigned to the FBI office in Islamabad and [7 words redacted] explained the situation to me in more detail. “The CIA asked the source a series of questions about bin Laden. He didn’t know much about the main target [bin Laden], as he dealt with midlevel al-Qaeda guys, not the leadership. [11 words redacted]”
“That’s pretty bad,” I said, shaking my head.
“It gets worse. The source then came back to [3 words redacted], again saying he wanted to share information. The first time, the [2 words redacted] passed him to the [1 word redacted] official, who again turned him away. But the second time, thankfully, the [1 word redacted] agent included me. I realized this source could be of use, so I sent you guys a message through Chris Reimann.”
In Pakistan the DEA agent arranged for us and another FBI agent, Jennifer Keenan, from I-49, to meet the man. When the CIA got wind of the meeting, a different officer from the agency came. As we had flown all the way from New York to meet the source, the officer guessed that he was probably more valuable than his colleague had thought.
Unlike Junior, the man didn’t know much about the top-level al-Qaeda operatives, [10 words redacted]—and other radical terrorists whom we had never heard about. [13 words redacted] It was clear he disliked al-Qaeda, both from a personal and an ideological point of view, [10 words redacted]. We tilted the questions toward what we thought would be of use, and [5 words redacted].
“I don’t know bin Laden, [9 words redacted], you know a lot about bin Laden,” he told me during one conversation.
[3 words redacted]
[77 words redacted]
I didn’t tell him that I had heard the name [1 word redacted] before. It had come up during the questioning of Owhali, the failed suicide bomber from the East African embassy bombing. Owhali had said that when he and Jihad Ali made their martyrdom videos, [37 words redacted]—and that he was someone important we should be on the lookout for.
“Who [1 word redacted] is very valuable to bin Laden?” I later asked the source.
[10 words redacted]
“Who are they?”
[137 words redacted]
[7 words redacted]
[10 words redacted]
We wrote up all the information the source had given us, and it was deemed both credible and significant by FBI analysts back in the United States. We thanked the man and arranged a method to maintain contact. We also briefed the [1 word redacted] CIA [3 words redacted] on our evaluation of the information that had been supplied.
When I returned to the United States I found that the CIA was now interested in our man. I traveled with my supervisor at the time, John Liguori, and my partner, Steve Bongardt, to Langley (CIA headquarters) to brief the agency. There we found that there was an internal