“He wants to be a martyr and doesn’t want to live,” Abu Jandal said sincerely, in consideration of Owhali’s interests.
After discussing East Africa, Abu Jandal also told us what he knew about al-Qaeda’s London cell, headed by Fawwaz, former head of the Kenyan cell. When the news came that Fawwaz had been arrested, bin Laden was upset. “He told us that he had told Fawwaz to leave London and come to Afghanistan, but he didn’t listen,” Abu Jandal said, recounting what bin Laden had told him. Bin Laden went on to praise Fawwaz, according to Abu Jandal, and told him that Fawwaz was “a good example and had a capacity that we hope God will compensate us for in return.”
We moved on to other al-Qaeda operations, including the USS
“How do you know he is dead?” I asked.
Abu Jandal replied, “A feeling inside me tells me he is.” He then admitted that he had seen Khamiri’s photo in a newspaper, identifying him as one of the
We discussed Americans he had met who had converted to Islam and had gone to Afghanistan. The conversation segued into a discussion of attempts by outside intelligence agencies to try to infiltrate al-Qaeda. Abu Jandal told us that one operative had been recruited by a foreign intelligence agency after being taken to a hotel room, shown pornographic movies, sodomized, and then blackmailed. He folded after Saif al-Adel accused him of being a spy, confessing that in fact that was the case. There were similar stories involving the intelligence of other countries.
The interview with Abu Jandal lasted the entire night. We wanted to get everything we could in that session, in case he changed his mind later about cooperating. When we eventually finished, he seemed relieved and said to me, “Can I ask you a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Please,” he said, “please send my condolences to the American people from a terrorist who used to be part of al-Qaeda.”
At the start of the next evening’s session, I greeted Abu Jandal and said, “Remember what I told you about America’s revolutionary history?”
“Yes,” he replied eagerly.
“Well, here’s a book on that topic. I think you’ll enjoy it.” I handed him a book (in Arabic) about George Washington and the history of the American Revolution that I had found in the U.S. Embassy.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the book gratefully.
We spent that session and every evening for the next week and a half speaking to Abu Jandal and following up on matters raised in the second night’s session that we wanted more information on. Abu Jandal came to enjoy our conversations, and would give us all the information we wanted as we joked and drank tea together. Much later, when we bade him farewell and left Yemen, he hugged Bob and me and invited us to visit his house in Yemen “when I am free and out of jail.”
Abu Jandal talked to us about his path to al-Qaeda. Though he was born in Jeddah, his family later moved to Yemen. His strong religious devotion surfaced around 1988. He started attending a mosque in Sanaa and began studying theology and the Quran. As the war in Bosnia raged, inspired by his teachers and provoked by images and stories of massacres and the rape of Muslim women and children by marauding Serbs, he traveled to Bosnia to help the Muslims fight back.
Back then you couldn’t travel to Bosnia from Yemen directly, so he took a roundabout route. From Sanaa he flew to Damascus, Syria; from there, he drove to Istanbul, Turkey; and from the Turkish capital he flew to Zagreb, Croatia. From Zagreb he drove to Zenitsa, Bosnia, where he was received by the Mujahideen Brigade, the name given to the Arab mujahideen, mostly veterans from Afghanistan, who fought in Bosnia. He gave them his passport and valuables to look after, so that if he was killed in battle no one could identify him as a foreign fighter, and he trained in a camp for forty-five days.
He learned how to use Kalashnikov machine guns, PK machine guns, and RPGs, and also learned topography and combat tactics. After completing the training course, Abu Jandal went to the front lines and engaged in combat against Serb forces. He didn’t fight for long, however, because soon after he went to the front, the Dayton Peace Accords were signed, and Abu Jandal, along with other foreign fighters, was deported. Abu Jandal said that leaders of the foreign fighters, including Abu al-Hareth al-Liby, Abu Hamza al-Jaza’eri, Abu Ziad al-Najdi, and Abu Hammam al-Najaji, were assassinated during this period, after which Abu Jandal and his group were told that they had to leave the country and were no longer needed.
To conceal their identities from spies of their home governments and other intelligence entities, all fighters were given aliases. Abu Jandal had originally picked “Abu Hamza” but was told that it was too common. An Egyptian acquaintance suggested that “Abu Jandal,” with its implication that the bearer of the name could be an agent of death, would be fitting.
In 1996 Abu Jandal traveled to Somalia to help Muslim fighters who were trying to take over the country. They were battling invading Ethiopian forces who opposed their taking control. However, the Somalis, he discovered, were selective with regard to who could fight. From among the group that Abu Jandal had arrived with, only he was accepted—because his dark complexion allowed him to blend in easily. To “avoid complications,” the Somalis declined to use anyone who was patently foreign-born: they wished to maintain the appearance of a native force. Abu Jandal’s description of his route to Somalia matched the route that L’Houssaine Kherchtou had told us al-Qaeda used to transport fighters.
After being accepted, Abu Jandal was approached by ministers from the Islamic Union Movement, or Itihad Islami (his hosts), and asked if he had money to give them “for our cause.” This put Abu Jandal over the edge. “We are not here for the jihad of money, nor the jihad of color,” he angrily told them. He didn’t like their attitude toward fighting and toward fellow Muslims. Without having fought a battle in Somalia, he returned to Yemen.
Later that year he met Muhannad bin Attash, Khallad’s elder brother, at the al-Qaeda guesthouse on October Street in Sanaa. Muhannad, an inspiring figure, convinced Abu Jandal to go to Tajikistan with him to wage jihad. They traveled to Karachi first and met up with other foreign fighters, and this group became known, unofficially, as the Northern Group. Abu Jandal was among the members of the group who in 1996 pledged
Abu Jandal went to the front lines to fight alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. During a battle he injured the bottom of his foot and was evacuated to Khost. He spent three months recovering, and then went to Kandahar to join bin Laden. He served as one of the guards—along with Khallad, Hamdan, and others— during the May 1998 press conference of bin Laden’s following the ABC interview.
After the East African bombings, bin Laden enlisted Abu Jandal, Saqr al-Jadawi, Fayadh al-Madani, and Mu’awiya al-Madani as his bodyguards. Bin Laden gave Abu Jandal a gun with two bullets and told him, “If I am ever about to be captured, kill me first.” The gun and those bullets became Abu Jandal’s most prized possessions.
After a trip to Yemen, Abu Mohammed al-Masri recommended that Abu Jandal be made emir of the Kabul guesthouse. There had been a dispute between al-Qaeda operatives from Egypt and al-Qaeda members from the Arabian Peninsula as to who should be in charge of it. Bin Laden realized that he needed someone who was respected by both groups—and he felt that Abu Jandal fit that bill. Abu Jandal was honored to be appointed.
As emir, his job was to interview people who came to stay, find out why they had come to Afghanistan, and test them to see if they were suitable candidates for membership in al-Qaeda. For this duty he was paid $64 a month by bin Laden. Abu Jandal also traveled around to different training camps, meeting recruits and advocating jihad against America and the importance of al-Qaeda.
Later he moved from Kabul to Kandahar, where he stayed in the bin Laden compound and was paid $94 a month by bin Laden to help protect him. At this point he was recognized as a central figure in the entourage.
Abu Jandal treasured the book on George Washington. (Attorneys who years later interviewed him for the Hamdan trial told me that he still had it and showed it to them.) He read it immediately, devoting an entire day to it, and discussed it with us that evening. He excitedly told me: “Bin Laden is like George Washington. They’re both
