Hada was a cog in al-Qaeda’s operations in Yemen. Bashir al-Shadadi was the organization’s main travel facilitator in the country; he had also participated in the jihad in Bosnia, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. His role was to move recruits from Yemen to camps in Afghanistan. The person who helped him organize this movement of mujahideen was Abdul Razaq Saleh al-Nijjar, who was married to Shadadi’s sister. Yemeni recruits were received at the Kandahar guesthouse by Abu al-Kholoud, who was married to Shadadi’s other sister. The operative tasked with training recruits in the al-Farouq training camp was another brother-in law of Shadadi’s named Husam al-Deen al- Himyari. It was felt that blood loyalty would extend beyond ideology, making infiltration of the group less likely. Bin Laden’s son Mohammed, considered by al-Qaeda members to be most like his father, married the daughter of al- Qaeda’s then military commander, Abu Hafs al-Masri.
With his children all being al-Qaeda members, or married to them, Hada’s house in Sanaa naturally became a place where al-Qaeda operatives would meet. On most days someone was there having meetings or just stopping by for a chat. This is what led to his number’s becoming the al-Qaeda switchboard in Yemen. At one point Hada became upset at how high his telephone bill was, prompting Mihdhar to joke that Hada was a “penny-pincher.”
Tragedy struck Hada’s family when Abu Jaffar was electrocuted in 1999 while fishing in Duranta Lake in Afghanistan. He was in a boat with another al-Qaeda member while a third was on shore operating an electric transformer. They communicated by reflecting sun rays, using a mirror. The person on shore misinterpreted the movement of the mirror on the boat as a signal and flipped the switch while Abu Jaffar was still in the water collecting fish. He died instantly. Hada traveled to Afghanistan to visit his son’s grave and stayed with his then- pregnant daughter and her husband, Ahmed Mohammed Haza al-Darbi, who at the time was a trainer at al- Farouq.
Hada decided to join al-Qaeda. He underwent military training at Loghar. Bin Laden met him there and honored him because of his age and known loyalty. Other operatives took to calling him Am Ahmed (Uncle Ahmed). At the end of the training, a thirty-kilometer march was required, and the instructors at first excused Hada because of his age. He became upset, and they responded by appointing him leader of the march. He was proud of leading the formation and carrying its flag. The fighters referred to him as “Umda,” an Egyptian term that translates to “Mayor.”
After training, he wanted to participate in jihad. He was dispatched to the front lines to fight against the Northern Alliance troops of Ahmed Shah Massoud. Due to his age, he was kept in the rear, next to the artillery. Another of his sons, Samir (alias Abed Al-Rahman), joined him in Afghanistan and attended an al-Qaeda training camp. Samir was later killed when he blew himself up with a hand grenade after being cornered by Yemeni security during an al-Qaeda operation in Yemen.
Hada stayed in Afghanistan for about five months. On his way back to Yemen, he stopped in Kandahar, where bin Laden was hosting a dinner. Hada was honored by being seated next to bin Laden. After his return to Yemen, Hada encouraged his third son, Abu Khalil, to travel to Afghanistan to join al-Qaeda.
By the time we had finished, the Yemenis realized that Hada wasn’t just an ignorant old man.
One of the operatives Abu Jandal and Hada had mentioned was Abdul Aziz al-Janoubi, an alias of Ahmed Mohammed Haza al-Darbi. We didn’t know his real name at the time, so we referred to him as Abdul Aziz. Because of the information we already had about him, including the fact that he had been in the same close combat class from which Mihdhar had been selected as a hijacker, we initially thought that Darbi might be among the 9/11 hijackers, but no one fitting his description was registered on any of the flights.
After ruling out that possibility, I had asked Abu Jandal: “Do you think Abdul Aziz is operational?”
“He is in the special operations division,” Abu Jandal had replied, “but to know for sure if he is operational right now, you should check where his family is. If he sent his wife back to her family, that means he’s probably on a mission.” We now asked Hada, the wife’s father, and confirmed that Darbi’s family was back in Yemen staying with him at his house.
From the descriptions Abu Jandal and Hada had given us of Darbi, we were able to further identify him, and we got a picture of him from the Yemenis—he had applied for a Yemeni passport under a different name. We sent out a worldwide alert to police forces and intelligence agencies; a few months later, when I was back in the United States, I stopped at a grocery store in Manhattan and did a double-take when I saw an NYPD Wanted poster for him behind the cash register. Eventually Darbi was captured while attempting to visit his mistress in Azerbaijan.
Part 5
A NEW WORLD ORDER
17. Bin Laden’s Escape
“What’s this?” a Northern Alliance commander asked me, in early 2002, as we walked through the rubble of what had been bin Laden’s hideout in Kabul. A U.S. fighter plane had flown overhead and dropped thousands of leaflets, a few of which settled on the ground near us.
I picked one up. “It’s a note offering twenty-five million dollars for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden,” I said. The sum was written out as a numeral, with its impressive string of zeros.
“That won’t work,” he said, shaking his head. “You won’t get any information.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for a start, most people in this area can’t read. But beyond that, they don’t believe that amount of money exists in the world. They are simple folks. If you would write, say, a hundred rupees, that would be more believable, and you’d probably get more responses.”
After the Taliban refused an ultimatum from the U.S. government to stop harboring al-Qaeda, on October 7, 2001, the U.S. military launched Operation Enduring Freedom and attacked Afghanistan. Primary strikes were launched at the capital, Kabul, at the country’s main airport, at Kandahar, where Mullah Omar was based, and at Jalalabab—all cities considered central to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Supported by U.S. air cover and Special Operations Forces, the Northern Alliance pressed forward against Taliban positions.
Once the U.S. attack began, the leaders of different terrorist groups came together for a meeting. Among those present were representatives of al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiah, and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Independent operatives like Abu Zubaydah and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Liby, of Khaldan, also participated. They all agreed to put their personal and ideological differences behind them and unite to fight the invading U.S. forces.
Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, one of al-Qaeda’s military commanders, was appointed commander of all the Arabs. He was assisted by Abdel al-Wakeel al-Masri, one of the 1998 East African embassy bombing co-conspirators. Abdel Wakeel toured al-Qaeda bases and instructed fighters to dig trenches around their bases. He told several al-Qaeda operatives, “The United States will only attack by air and drop bombs. They won’t put troops on the ground.” Al- Qaeda’s military preparations were premised on this assumption.
When U.S. forces appeared in Afghanistan, it was a surprise to most al-Qaeda members, including Salim Hamdan. For years he had sat through speeches by bin Laden in which the al-Qaeda leader had told those gathered that the United States was a weak country that retreated when attacked. It was a shock, therefore, to see the United States responding to the attacks in New York and Washington by invading Afghanistan, and to see al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders on the run.
Once the invasion began, bin Laden and his entourage kept constantly on the move, traveling between Kabul and Jalalabad, areas bin Laden was very familiar with, having lived and traveled in the region since the beginning of the Soviet jihad. At one stop, in a small village, Hamdan timidly approached the al-Qaeda leader and asked for a brief leave. His wife was pregnant and ill. He promised to return.
Bin Laden granted permission. With his personal driver and confidant gone, he decided to change his entourage. He realized that his life would now be that of a fugitive. While before he had been a guest of the ruling Taliban, he now needed operatives with different skills around him. The new group he picked included three of his most trusted advisers and operatives: his son Uthman; Hamza al-Ghamdi, the leader of the Northern Group; and
