Amir al-Mu’minin, or “commander of the faithful”—emir of the country. Bin Laden pledged allegiance to him, and he in turn offered al-Qaeda refuge and protection.
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 Guantanamo, 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 Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Ghalib al-Qamish: Head of the Political Security Organization in Yemen whom we worked with during the USS
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 Guantanamo 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
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 Terrorstop and sentenced to life in prison.
Ali Abdullah Saleh: President of Yemen who, during the Yemeni civil war, built a relationship with mujahideen fighters; they helped him lead the North to defeat the socialist South. That began a complex relationship with extremists and al-Qaeda that continues to this day.
Mohammed Saleh: Egyptian Islamic Jihad
Marwan al-Shehhi: A member of the Hamburg cell and roommate of 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and facilitator Ramzi Binalshibh, he was one of the hijackers on United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Fahd al-Quso’s confession to NCIS special agent Robert McFadden and me that Shehhi had stayed at one point in Abu Jandal’s guesthouse enabled us to convince the Yemenis to let us question Abu Jandal.
[2 words redacted]: CIA’s chief operational psychologist with whom [1 word redacted] worked during the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah [3 words redacted]. He left the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah after CIA contractors made it clear that they intended to use coercive interrogation techniques.
Abdullah Sungkar: Leader of Darul Islam who founded the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah with the cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. He arranged for members to travel to Afghanistan in the 1980s to train and fight the Soviets. One of his key followers was Hambali. He died in 1999.
Adbullah Tabarak (alias Abu Assim al-Maghrebi): Close personal friend of bin Laden’s dating back to their days fighting the Soviets together, he followed him to Sudan and was asked by the al-Qaeda leader to head his bodyguard detachment after the 1998 East African embassy bombings. He is the father-in-law of Ibrahim al-Qosi. Arrested with Ali al-Bahlul as part of the “dirty thirty” group after 9/11 and taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I identified him based on a description Abu Jandal had given me, and I took him out of the general population. Under suspicious circumstances, the FBI was barred from questioning him and he was released. Today he is free in Morocco.
Furqan al-Tajiki (alias of Fawaz al-Rabeiee): Yemeni al-Qaeda operative who was arrested in connection with the Bayt Habra car theft plot and was later involved in other al-Qaeda operations in Yemen. In February 2006 he escaped with other al-Qaeda members from a jail in Saana, and he was killed in October 2006.
Madani al-Tayyib (also known as Abu Fadhl al-Makkee): Al-Qaeda’s first financial chief, he lost a leg during the Soviet jihad and was very close to bin Laden. He ordered Jamal al-Fadl to try to procure uranium for the organization. In the 1990s he traveled to Europe with the help of Khalid al-Fawwaz to get treatment for his leg, and in 1997 it was reported that he had defected from al-Qaeda—causing many operatives, including Harun Fazul, to panic. He cooperated with the Saudi authorities, who said that they shared the information he gave them with the CIA, but this information was never passed along to the FBI. At one point, the U.S. military mistakenly thought that they had him in custody in Guantanamo. Today he is in Saudi Arabia.
George Tenet: Director of the CIA from July 1997 to July 2004. Under his leadership the professional interrogators from the CIA were sidelined, contractors were put in charge of interrogations, and coercive interrogations were introduced.
Tom Ward: An NYPD detective assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York whom I picked to be a member of our team for the USS
Colonel Yassir (not his real name): Yemeni interrogator whom we worked closely with during the USS
Ramzi Yousef: Mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with whom he plotted the failed Manila Air (Bojinka) attack. He is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
Ayman al-Zawahiri: Originally one of the leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, he supported the group’s merger with al-Qaeda and became bin Laden’s deputy. He helped surround bin Laden with fellow Egyptians, ensuring that they dominated and shaped al-Qaeda. He is suspected of being behind the 1989 assassination of Abdullah Azzam. On June 16, 2011, al-Qaeda announced that he had been appointed the new leader of the group following bin Laden’s death.
Aaron Zebley: FBI special agent with a legal background who was instrumental in apprehending and gaining a confession from Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, an operative involved in the 1998 East African embassy bombings. He was assigned to the 9/11 investigation after the attacks, and with Mike Butsch trailed Ramzi Binalshibh. [22 words redacted]
