The Black Banners

bin Yousaf, Tawfiq Muhammad Salih bin Rashid, and Saleh bin Saeed bin Yousef): Senior al-Qaeda operative from a family of al-Qaeda members, including older brother Muhannad and younger brothers al-Bara, [1 word redacted], and Moaz. He joined al-Qaeda with the Northern Group, lost a leg in 1997—at Murad Beg, where his brother Muhannad was killed—and rose up through the organization to become a key bin Laden aide. He helped plan major attacks, including the bombing of the USS Cole and 9/11. The failure of the CIA to share information that the FBI requested during the Cole investigation prevented us from following his trail and possibly stopping the 9/11 attacks. He headed al-Qaeda operations in the Arabian Gulf after the November 2002 arrest of Nashiri, and he himself was arrested, by chance, in April 29, 2003, alongside Ammar al-Baluchi, by Pakistani police. [9 words redacted] and the FBI was not given access to him. He is being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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.

Khalid al-Mihdhar (alias Sinan al-Maki): One of the 9/11 hijackers, he was on American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon. The son-in-law of Ahmed al-Hada and the brother-in-law of Ahmed al- Darbi, he was identified by the 9/11 Commission and the CIA’s inspector general as the weakest link in the 9/11 plot. Both concluded that if the CIA had shared information about him with the FBI, as legally required and as the FBI had asked, 9/11 might have been averted.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller: On November 8, 2002, he replaced Maj. Gen. Michael E. Dunlavey and took control of Guantanamo. He refused to listen to the professional interrogators at the base and instead allowed coercive interrogation techniques to be used. On August 31, 2003, he flew to Iraq to advise those running the Baghdad prison Abu Ghraib.

Ali Mohamed: An al-Qaeda–EIJ double agent who served in the U.S. Army in the 1980s while also training terrorist operatives and helping plan attacks. Before joining Zawahiri’s EIJ, he had a seventeen- year career in the Egyptian military. He was part of the cell that cased the Nairobi embassy in preparation for the August 7, 1998, bombing. He was arrested by the United States in September in connection with the bombing and pleaded guilty in May 1999. He is awaiting sentencing.

Binyam Mohamed (alias Talha): Al-Qaeda operative who plotted with Jose Padilla to attack the United States with a dirty bomb. Traveling on a fake British passport, he was arrested in Pakistan and was handed over to the CIA and taken to Guantanamo. He was never tried and is today a free man in the UK.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (nickname: KSM; alias Mokhtar): 9/11 mastermind; uncle of the 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and co-planner, with him, of the thwarted Manila Air (or Bojinka) plot. Originally an independent terrorist, he joined al-Qaeda to make use of its organization, operatives, and funds in plotting the 9/11 attacks. The United States only learned that KSM was behind 9/11, and a member of al-Qaeda, from the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah that [4 words redacted] conducted. He was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and put into the CIA’s coercive interrogation program, and the FBI was not given access to him. He is being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Zacarias Moussaoui: Al-Qaeda operative who entered the United States on February 23, 2001, and attended flight schools in Oklahoma and Minnesota. He was arrested on August 16, 2001, and charged with an immigration violation after a flight instructor became suspicious and reported him. He was convicted for his role in 9/11 and sentenced to life in prison.

Robert Mueller: Became director of the FBI on September 4, 2001. Supported the decision of FBI agents not to get involved in the CIA’s coercive interrogation program despite strong pressure from the Bush administration.

Hamoud Naji: Head of Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s security team during our investigation into the USS Cole bombing.

Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri (full name: Abdul Rahim Hussein Muhammad Abda al-Nashiri; aliases: Abda Hussein Muhammad, Abdu, Sa’eed al-Mansouri, and Mullah Bilal): Senior al-Qaeda special operations member who masterminded the October 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole. After joining the organization as part of the Northern Group in 1996, he rose through its ranks to eventually become head of operations in the Arabian Gulf. He was captured in November 2002 and put into the CIA’s coercive interrogation program, and the FBI was not given access to him at the time. He is being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Ibrahim al-Nibras (alias of Ibrahim al-Thawer): Yemeni al-Qaeda operative who, with Fahd al-Quso, transported $36,000 from Yemen to Khallad in Bangkok—money that was probably used by 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi for their plane tickets to the United States and for spending money there. After delivering the money to Khallad he became a suicide bomber, alongside Hassan al-Khamiri, in the bombing of the USS Cole.

Mullah Omar: Reclusive founder and leader of the Taliban whose followers named him