PLAYING OFFENSE - PART TWO
America had taken bin Laden seriously only in 1998, after he destroyed two U.S. Embassies in Africa. But "Osama's History" showed unmistakably how the Saudi multimillionaire had declared war on the United States back in 1991, how for a decade he had branded America the "head of the snake" and rationalized the killing of American civilians. But perhaps the most striking find were the handwritten minutes of an Aug. 11, 1988, meeting. It was there that bin Laden and others agreed on "the establishment of a new military group" consisting of three units, one to be called, in Arabic, Qaeda, or Base. A week later at bin Laden's home, they held a second meeting--for three days--that led to the official founding of the new entity. "Work of al Qaeda commenced on 9/10/1988 with a group of 15 brothers . . ." concluded the report. "And thanks be to God."
Half-Dead Bob. By early 2002, America and its allies had locked up nearly 1,000 al Qaeda members and supporters. Planeloads of captives from Afghanistan soon filled the holding pens of Camp X-Ray, the hastily built prison at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Some inmates left a lasting impression on their keepers, among them an emaciated fellow they called Half-Dead Bob.
The Arab fighter had come to Gitmo, as the base is called, weighing a bare 66 pounds last year. He had shrapnel wounds, suffered from tuberculosis, and had lost a lung. Army Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey vividly remembers his first encounter with "Bob." Dunlavey ran interrogations at the base until November of last year. By the time they met, Bob was making a rapid recovery. He had put on 50 pounds and, sitting across a table from Dunlavey, he thanked him for the food and medical treatment. "General, you are probably a good Christian," Dunlavey recalls him saying. "And you are probably a good man. But if I ever get free, I will kill you."
Dunlavey, a 57-year-old Army reservist and state trial judge in Erie, Pa., has rarely spoken publicly; his remarks come from a March speech at a Washington conference. Like many officials at Gitmo, Dunlavey came away alarmed by the interrogations. Like Half-Dead Bob, most appeared willing to die as martyrs. "These people are implacably committed to apocalyptic terrorism," Dunlavey concluded. "Their goal is the absolute destruction of America as we know it."
By last spring, Gitmo was filled with some 660 of Bob's fellow travelers. As a group, they reflect al Qaeda's extraordinary reach, hailing from no less than 42 countries (though nearly one fifth come from Saudi Arabia). From the start, the new prison was controversial, with human-rights groups raising questions about the detainees' legal status and treatment. Washington considers them not prisoners of war but "enemy combatants" subject to the military's justice system. They have been shackled, blindfolded, and forced to stand or kneel in the same position for hours. They have no access to attorneys. Moreover, the group has ranged in age from young teenagers to the elderly, and the intelligence value of many has been minimal. Criticism from U.S. allies prompted Secretary of State Colin Powell to write an April 14 letter to the Pentagon, arguing for release of some detainees.
While some may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, officials close to the interrogations can tick off a series of high-profile cases in which the prisoners have proved useful. Gitmo detainees helped place "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh in an al Qaeda camp, for example, and gave tips that led to the breakup of alleged al Qaeda cells in Morocco and Lackawanna, N.Y.
Gitmo, though, is only one node in a network of holding centers and prisons the United States began using in the war on terrorism. There are a half-dozen others, all of them overseas and inaccessible to the press and the public. In Jordan, the CIA uses a special center at the country's remote al Jafr Prison, where it has shipped up to 100 al Qaeda suspects for initial interrogations (box, Page 22). In Afghanistan, the Pentagon and the CIA run major interrogation centers at bases in Bagram and Kandahar, where some 70 prisoners are still believed held. Another facility is at the joint British-American base on Diego Garcia. A tiny speck of real estate in the Indian Ocean, the island was once called "Gilligan's Island with guns" by Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper. U.S. interrogations, employing so-called stress-and-duress techniques, have also come under fire from human-rights groups. The tactics range from sensory overload--use of bright, 24-hour lighting and the playing of loud music--to sleep deprivation. But the most troubling questions are reserved for prisons run by friendly Muslim governments. The CIA has helped move dozens of detainees not only to Jordan but also to Egypt, Morocco, and even Syria. Dubbed "renditions," the transfers have stirred concern by critics over those nations' records for torture.
The Facilitator. The efforts of the Jordanians are especially valued by U.S. officials. Their interrogators are used not only at al Jafr but also at other U.S. detention centers. Asked if they have helped with questioning at Guantanamo, a Jordanian intelligence agent replied: "We did. We do. And we will do." Indeed, CIA officials say they prefer the Jordanians precisely because they do not torture (although human-rights reports note their nasty reputation for falaqa--beating prisoners on the soles of their feet). "It's not that we have better interrogators," the Jordanian agent explained. "But when you want to interrogate a fundamentalist, it is not easy to get into his mind when he considers you an infidel."
In the parlance of the intelligence world, such ties with friendly spy services are called liaison relationships. "The one thing the CIA does better than anybody is manage liaison relationships," says Milt Bearden, the agency's former chief of station in Pakistan. "We've done it for 50 years. Our job is to recruit the spirit and love by giving them stuff--and that gives us stuff."
"Giving them stuff," in fact, has been central to the CIA's war on al Qaeda. The idea is simple enough: After 9/11, the United States began, in effect, to contract out key portions of the war on terrorism. Millions of dollars in covert funding started flowing to friendly Muslim intelligence and security agencies. The top recipients: Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan. Also on the list are Algeria, Morocco, and Yemen. Total payments have topped well over $20 million, intelligence sources say, an amount they consider a bargain. Washington, of course, has granted other incentives to key allies: training, equipment, debt forgiveness, economic assistance. U.S. aid to Pakistan ballooned from a paltry $5 million in 2001 to over $1.1 billion in 2002. Over the past year, aid to Jordan has more than quadrupled, to $1.6 billion.
"It is impossible to overestimate the importance that our Arab allies played--the Jordanians, the Egyptians, the North Africans," explains Roger Cressey, the former terrorism expert on the National Security Council. "They understand them better, they penetrated the cells--we certainly didn't."
The Pakistanis, however, draw the most praise. Pakistan served as midwife to the Taliban, helping bring the radical regime to power in neighboring Afghanistan. But after 9/11, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf turned on a dime and cracked down on al Qaeda terrorists who sought refuge in his country. That policy netted the war on terror's biggest fish.
It began with Riyadh the Facilitator. Little is known about the man, whom Pakistani forces seized in Karachi in January 2002. Responsible for managing al Qaeda's affairs in Pakistan, he is one of a handful of important operatives about whom U.S. officials have released virtually no information. During the war, allied troops in Afghanistan nabbed a pair of middle managers, but Riyadh was the first field commander captured after 9/11. "Riyadh was a serious logistician," says an intelligence source. He was also the first link in a chain that would lead from one al Qaeda leader to another.
The tactics employed were basic enough. In newspaper ads, the Pakistani Army offered fat rewards for tips about strange foreigners. Riyadh's neighbors had noticed the odd comings and goings of people who entered his small home. Once in custody, he talked. Soon, investigators were chasing down leads into al Qaeda's growing presence in Pakistan.
The next jihadist domino to fall was much bigger. Abu Zubaydah was a rising star in al Qaeda. Just 31, the Saudi-born Palestinian already had served as the top recruiter for the group's training camps in Afghanistan. After its military chief, Mohammed Atef, died in the U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan, Zubaydah was tapped to replace him. He wasn't very good at it, investigators say. He set up shop in Pakistan's third-largest city, Faisalabad, but lasted only a month. The big break came, again, through a local tip.
Zubaydah's arrest took place just as U.S. analysts were digesting the windfall of intelligence from around the world. Interrogators now knew what questions to ask him. Even better, they knew some of the answers. "He initially gave us a bunch of outdated crap," says one official. But eventually he slipped up. He made reference to an American in the al Qaeda ranks, a tip that led weeks later to the Chicago arrest of alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla, a former street hood who found his way to radical Islam. He identified a photo of Omar al Farouq, the Southeast Asia chief; two weeks later, authorities in Indonesia nabbed Farouq.
Turning point. The Pakistanis also recovered a trove of materials in Zubaydah's safe house--CDs, address books, financial records, a satellite phone. "It felt like the working documents of an organization," says a senior intelligence source. "Zubaydah's capture felt like a turning point." By the end of spring 2002, more than 100 CIA officers and FBI agents had poured into Pakistan, setting up units to work with local intelligence. The CIA brought eavesdropping devices; the FBI, forensic detective gear. The chase was on.
Next to fall was Ramzi Binalshibh, paymaster for the 9/11 hijackers. In September raids, the U.S.-Pakistani teams nabbed Binalshibh and others in Karachi. Along with their quarry they found three satellite phones, five laptop computers, wads of cash, and a small arsenal.
Weeks later, Moroccan prisoners at Gitmo began a chain reaction that struck another blow against al Qaeda. The detainees gave up details of an active cell in Morocco; within weeks, authorities busted the group, thwarting its plans to bomb U.S. and British warships in the Strait of Gibraltar. The Moroccan cell, in turn, led investigators to Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, a top operative who ran al Qaeda's operations on the Saudi peninsula. In October, they found Nashiri, the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, hiding in the United Arab Emirates, planning a series of naval strikes. Nashiri soon broke; he even let officials listen in as he called his associates. The result: A CIA Predator drone found the chief of his cell in Yemen, driving with four of his men on an isolated road. A Hellfire missile blasted apart their car, killing all.
Al Qaeda and its allies struck back in the fall of 2002. First came the October attack on a French oil tanker in Yemen. A week later: the Bali bombings, the worst single act of terrorism since 9/11, killing more than 200 people. Then on November 28, suicide bombers in Mombasa, Kenya, struck an Israeli-owned hotel, killing 16, while others nearly brought down an Israeli airliner with shoulder-fired missiles.
But the pressure on al Qaeda was unrelenting. "Almost half of our successes against senior al Qaeda members has come in recent months," declared CIA Director George Tenet in December. And in March of this year, a U.S.-Pakistani team racked up the biggest prize yet. When they picked up the trail of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed this spring, investigators thought they might have found the path to bin Laden himself. KSM, as he was called, had taken over as al Qaeda's chief of operations. Diabolically clever, he was known within al Qaeda as "the Brain" and is credited with masterminding the 9/11 attacks and a half-dozen other operations.
Mohammed, a 38-year-old Pakistani, was nabbed on March 1. "KSM," observed Cofer Black, "is like getting their chief of staff." Making the haul even better was KSM's companion: Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, an al Qaeda bagman who had wired cash to the 9/11 hijackers. With Hawsawi, agents found bank ledgers, the names of couriers and financiers, more phone numbers, and safe-house addresses. Investigators found an array of new suspects to track down, including more than a dozen sympathizers in America, Spain, and Switzerland. By spring of this year, the Pakistanis were arresting al Qaeda suspects almost weekly. The fight has been costly: Ten Pakistani soldiers lost their lives while raiding a safe house, and at least 10 others have been injured in the campaign. "We always say we captured these people, but that's not entirely true," says a U.S. official. "The first guy through the door is a Pakistani."
America's high-tech eavesdropping gear has given the hunters a crucial edge. "We've been using a lot of the tools that we couldn't use when al Qaeda was hiding in the mountains," explains former National Security Agency staffer Matthew Aid, an expert on electronic eavesdropping. Only in rare cases can homing gear give a satellite or cellphone's exact location, Aid says. What it can do, though, is pinpoint the receiver's neighborhoods, giving on-the-ground security forces a place to focus. And al Qaeda's troops have foolishly cooperated. Three of its top people--KSM, Zubaydah, and Binalshibh--all were caught with satellite phones.
Before 9/11, eavesdropping on al Qaeda was America's single best source of intelligence on the group. But the CIA had few human sources to take the next step. "We couldn't corroborate it; we couldn't act on it," says an intelligence official. That has changed. Also, al Qaeda operatives are not the high-tech terrorists some imagine. Their computer files are rarely encrypted, and when they are, U.S. officials have broken the codes easily. Nor have they used encrypted telephones. Al Qaeda's "codes" consist of simple word substitutes or use of flowery Arabic phrases. "They continue to make basic tradecraft mistakes," says Aid, "and one of them is you never talk over the phone." That message has reached the top: Bin Laden no longer uses the phone.
Bin Laden remains the world's most wanted man. He is thought to be hiding in the tribal badlands along Pakistan's northwest border. U.S. counterterrorism officials remain confident that they eventually will find him. "Ninety-six percent of what we operationally need is in place," says Black. "You're just waiting for the dime to drop."
Black left the CIA in late 2002. He now directs the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. Like his old colleagues at the CIA, he remains wary, sobered by recent attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Al Qaeda, he says, remains a disturbingly lethal threat, with hundreds of operatives and would-be martyrs dispersed around the globe.
Al Qaeda 2.0. Borrowing a term from management theory, one counterterrorism veteran calls al Qaeda "a learning organization." It accumulates knowledge, develops new skills, and continually adapts to its environment. That, of course, is not good news. Peter Bergen, author of Holy War Inc., calls its latest incarnation al Qaeda 2.0, a more decentralized, more organic network of terrorism. The al Qaeda of 9/11--with its military training camps and millions of dollars--may in fact no longer exist, but in its place may be local cells that take on lives of their own. Instead of striving for catastrophic damage, they may concentrate on "soft" targets like the streets of Casablanca and the residences of Riyadh. And still, bin Laden's original creation may yet survive. Young jihadists could move into positions of leadership faster than America and its allies can track them down.
This much is clear: America waited too long to join the fray, and the battle is yet to be won. "I've never had a job where you can celebrate success, and you're still so paranoid at the end of the day," says a senior intelligence official. "I don't know if we'll ever be able to declare victory."
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