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 CIA disagreement—between the CTC and the Near East Division—about who from their side would handle him. [15 words redacted]
As far as shared access with the CIA was concerned, we didn’t mind it at all; the source could be useful to us both. The agency had expertise in safely handling sources. Nevertheless, in the past—in the East African embassy bombings investigation, in Albania, and in other cases—evidence had been tainted and made unusable for prosecutions because CIA officers had, in fact, mishandled the chain of custody; or there were discrepancies between information that went through CIA channels and what was reported in FBI channels. This can cause considerable problems during the prosecution phase; one doesn’t know which to trust. To make matters clear this time, John Liguori spelled out the terms. “One thing needs to be clear,” he told the CIA, “the source is our source. He’s a criminal source who is providing information on the fugitives from the East African embassy bombings. The intelligence we gain might be used for investigations and prosecutions. You are welcome to use him as well, but all meetings need to be done jointly and we have to be included in the reporting. All information needs to be coordinated because it will one day be used in a court of law.”
“Absolutely,” a senior CIA officer told us. “We respect that.”
“Good,” John said. “Remember, any intelligence gained has to be exactly the same in your reports as in our 302 reports, so that when it comes to court, there are no contradictions.” The 302 is a form used for reporting information that is likely to become testimony. It contains a digest of the interview conducted.
They readily agreed to our terms.
I traveled a few times with Steve Bongardt to Pakistan to meet the source. We made efforts to protect him; we didn’t want Pakistani or other intelligence agents knowing about our meetings with him. Whenever we were in the country, Pakistani agents tried to tail us. They weren’t very efficient, which made it easy to lose them. Sometimes, however, we enjoyed playing games with them to show them how ridiculous the situation was. One time, after we had finished our mission and were ready to go home the next morning, Steve and I walked out of our rooms, went to the elevator, and spotted a man who had been following us for a few days. While he claimed to be a receptionist on our floor, he repeatedly popped up wherever we were, and he didn’t wear a hotel uniform or seem to do any administrative work. As the elevator doors opened, we stepped in, and he followed us in.
“Oh, excuse me,” I said out loud. “I forgot something.” Steve and I stepped out of the elevator, and the “receptionist” jumped out.
“Actually, I have it,” Steve said, playing along, and we both stepped back in—as did the man.
We jumped out, and he jumped out. “You’re burned,” I told him with a big smile. “Tell them they need to send someone else to follow us.” His face went red, and he walked off.
6. “You’ll Be Singing Like a Canary”
L’Houssaine Kherchtou, chosen by al-Qaeda’s leaders to serve as bin Laden’s personal pilot, returned to Sudan from flight school in Nairobi in 1995 to find his pregnant wife begging on the streets of Khartoum for money for a Cesarean section. Al-Qaeda’s security rules had prevented him from contacting her, and he was unaware that she had been reduced to begging. He told her tearfully that he would take care of the money, and checked her into the main hospital in Khartoum.
Kherchtou then went to see Sheikh Sa’eed al-Masri, al-Qaeda’s financial chief, in the office the latter shared with bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders. “I need money to pay the hospital bill for my wife’s Cesarean section,” he told Sa’eed al-Masri. “It’s five hundred dollars.”
“I’m sorry, there is no money. We can’t give you anything,” Sa’eed al-Masri said apologetically. After a pause he added: “Why don’t you take your wife to the Muslim hospital?”
The Muslim hospital offered free care to the poor; conditions were known to be terrible. Kherchtou would never take his wife there. He knew that al-Qaeda had been having financial difficulties since bin Laden’s loss of family funds following his expulsion from Saudi Arabia; Kherchtou had been told not to renew his pilot license, which also cost five hundred dollars. He also knew, however, that al-Qaeda still had money. He had seen fellow operatives purchasing fake passports and other items needed for missions. The health of his wife and future child should be a priority, too, he believed, and he didn’t understand why they wouldn’t spare the money, especially for someone who had been so loyal and long-serving. One of al-Qaeda’s first operatives, Kherchtou felt the sting of the rejection when he recalled his service to the organization in Afghanistan, Nairobi, and elsewhere.
“If it were your wife or your daughter who needed a Cesarean, would you take her there?” Kherchtou asked Sa’eed al-Masri.
“Well…,” Sa’eed al-Masri replied. He found himself caught off-guard by Kherchtou’s challenge, and he knew, in his heart, that Kherchtou was right.
Kherchtou seized on Sa’eed al-Masri’s silence to press forward: “Why don’t you borrow money for me so I can pay for the procedure, and I will pay you back later?”
Sa’eed al-Masri shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t do anything until bin Laden comes back.”
Bin Laden was out of the office, but Kherchtou knew that this was Sa’eed al-Masri’s decision. “I’ve been with
