Dirty Wars (14 page)

The presidential findings and other directives issued by Bush after 9/11 had authorized the CIA and US Special Operations Forces to fight al Qaeda across the globe wherever its operatives were based. As US forces pushed into Afghanistan, Special Operations Forces and the CIA continued to track the movements of al Qaeda operatives with the aim of targeting them for kill or capture wherever they landed. After the United States swiftly overthrew the Taliban government in Kabul, many of the foreign fighters affiliated with bin Laden found themselves on the run and seeking refuge. One of the key safe havens they found was in the wilds of Yemen.

The Bush administration
put Yemen on a list
of potential early targets in the war on terror and could have swiftly dismantled Saleh's government, despite Saleh's cocky pre-9/11 declaration that “Yemen is a
graveyard for the invaders
.” Saleh was determined not to go the way of the Taliban, and he wasted little time in making moves to ensure he wouldn't.

The first was to board a plane to the United States.

In November 2001, President Saleh arrived in Washington, DC, where he
held talks
with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, as well as FBI director Robert Mueller and CIA director George Tenet. He told anyone who would listen that Yemen was on the side of the United States. The media were brought into the White House for a photo session of the two leaders smiling and shaking hands. In his meetings with Bush, Saleh emphasized Yemen's “condemnation of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and Yemen's denunciation of all forms of terrorism” and referred to his country as “a
principal partner
in the coalition against terrorism.”

While the Saleh show played out in public, with the Bush administration portraying Saleh as an ally in the newly branded “Global War on Terror,” behind closed doors senior US officials were brokering agreements with Saleh to expand the US footprint in Yemen. During his meetings in Washington, which included visits at his personal suite at the
Ritz Carlton
Hotel on Twenty-second Street by Mueller and Tenet, Saleh was
presented with an aid package
worth up to $400 million, in addition to funding from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Crucially for the United States, it would also include expanding the training of Yemen's special forces. It was this training that would permit US Special Forces to deploy inside Yemen while allowing Saleh to save face domestically. As
part of Saleh's deal with the Bush administration, the United States set up a “
counterterrorism camp
” in Yemen run by the CIA, US Marines and American Special Forces that would be backed up by the US outpost in the nearby African nation of Djibouti, which also housed Predator drones. Tenet also arranged for the United States to provide Yemen with helicopters and eavesdropping equipment. Crucially, Saleh also gave Tenet
permission for the CIA to fly drones
over his territory.

“Saleh
knew how to survive
,” said Dr. Emile Nakhleh, a former senior CIA intelligence officer. During his decades in power, had Saleh “learned how to speak the language of the Cold War, to endear himself to us and other Western countries by speaking the anti-communist language.” After 9/11, Saleh “learned very quickly” that he had to speak the antiterrorism language, Nakhleh added.

“So he came here seeking support, seeking financing. But, Saleh, from day one, years back, never thought that terrorism posed a threat to him. He thought that Yemen was basically a platform for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations and that the real target was al Saud, the House of Saud. So he found ways to deal with them,” Nakhleh told me. “And yet, he would come here or speak to us in a language we would like and would understand, but then he would go home and do all kinds of alliances with all kinds of shady characters to help him survive. I don't think he really honestly believed that al Qaeda posed a serious threat to his regime.”

Colonel Lang said Bush “was so taken with President Saleh as a personable, friendly, chummy kind of guy, that Bush was in fact quite willing to listen to whatever Saleh said about, ‘We like you Americans, we want to help you, we want to cooperate with you,' that kind of business, and was quite willing to send them foreign aid, including military aid.” During his meeting with President Bush in November 2001, Saleh “
expressed his concern
and hope that the military action in Afghanistan does not exceed its borders and spread to other parts of the Middle East, igniting further instability in the region,” according to a statement issued by the Yemeni Embassy in Washington at the end of the visit. But to keep Yemen off Washington's target list, Saleh would have to take action. Or at least give the appearance of doing so.

Saleh's entourage was given a list of several al Qaeda suspects that the Yemeni regime could target as a show of good faith. The next month, Saleh
ordered his forces to raid a village
in Marib Province, where Abu Ali al Harithi, a lead suspect in the
Cole
bombing, and other militants were believed to be residing. The operation by Yemeni special forces was a categorical failure. Local tribesmen took several of the soldiers hostage and the targets of the raid allegedly escaped unharmed. The soldiers were later
released through tribal mediators, but the action angered the tribes and served as a warning to Saleh to stay out of Marib. It was the beginning of what would be a complex and dangerous chess match for Saleh as he made his first moves to satisfy Washington's desire for targeted killing in Yemen while maintaining his own hold on power.

Soon after Saleh's Washington meetings, the United States established a task force for the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden. In late 2002, some
nine hundred military and intelligence personnel
would be deployed to a former French military outpost, Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti, under the name Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA). Located just an hour from Yemen by boat, the secretive base would soon serve as a command center for covert US action in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and would serve as the launch pad for the CIA and JSOC to strike at will outside the declared battlefield of Afghanistan.

As construction began on Lemonnier, the United States beefed up the presence of military “trainers” inside Yemen. Although officially in Yemen to modernize Yemen's counterterrorism forces, the Americans quickly set out to
establish operational capacity
to track al Qaeda suspects to find and fix their location so that US forces could finish them off. “Over the years, there'd been a number of kinds of people that were dubious characters from the American point of view that had taken shelter in Yemen. And Saleh plays his own game, very much, so he variously offers people shelter and a place to refuge,” recalled Colonel Lang. “So it was known that there were people in the country who were inimical to the United States, and they started tracking where these people were.” A year after Saleh's meeting with Bush at the White House, the US “trainers” would set up their first “wet” operation.

THE UNITED KINGDOM, THE UNITED STATES AND YEMEN
, 2002–2003—When Anwar Awlaki arrived in the United Kingdom, he called his wealthy uncle, Sheikh Saleh bin Fareed, who had a home in the south of England. “
Uncle Saleh, I am here
. May I come and see you?” Anwar asked. “You are welcome,” bin Fareed told him. When Anwar arrived at his uncle's home, the two caught up on family affairs back in Yemen before the conversation turned to the events in the United States. “Do you have anything to do with what happened?” bin Fareed recalled asking him, knowing that Anwar had been interrogated multiple times by the FBI. He had also seen news reports alleging that Anwar had met with some of the hijackers. “I don't have anything [to do with 9/11], whatsoever,” Anwar said, according to his uncle. “If I had anything to do with al Qaeda or those people, I would not be sitting with you in England today. I travel freely. In the UK they do not touch me.” Anwar told his uncle that US agents had told him, “We have nothing against you.” Anwar stayed with his uncle while he got situated in England and began preaching before Muslim audiences, at community groups, religious centers and mosques, with an increasing degree of passion, if not militancy, about the importance of defending and promoting Islam at a moment when he believed it was under assault. “He used to commute by train—he'd go to London, and he'd go to Birmingham, to give speeches, and he'd come back,” bin Fareed recalled.

In a speech he delivered during this period at the annual conference of the charity JIMAS, an Arabic acronym for the Association to Revive the Way of the Messenger, at the University of Leicester, Awlaki issued a challenge to Western Muslims to defend and preach their faith. “
We should be concerned
about what is happening to our neighbors, to our friends, to our coworkers, to the people whom we live with,” he said. “We're not being concerned if we know that our neighbors and friends, their fate is hellfire and we're doing nothing about it. So our first role as a Muslim minority of Muslims living among non-Muslims, is to proclaim the message publicly, and when we convey the message, we convey it in very plain and clear terms, with no confusion.” He cautioned them not to be aggressive
in promoting Islam, saying they should be like UPS, DHL or FedEx delivery people. “Rather than knocking on the door with a hammer, and then when the person opens the door you throw the package in their face—no,” he said. “You knock on the door, very politely, and then when they open the door you have a big smile on your face.”

In mid-2002, Awlaki returned to Yemen to study at the famed Iman University in Sana'a. “I was
given permission
from the administration of the University...to attend any class at any level and I took advantage of this and attended classes in Tafsir [exegesis of the Koran] and Fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] for a period of a few months,” Awlaki later wrote, adding that he “also benefited from the teachings of Shaykh Abdul Majid al Zindani the Rector of the University.” But as Awlaki began to make his next moves, those investigating him in the United States had not forgotten about him.

While Awlaki
traveled to Saudi Arabia
and Yemen and studied Islam, back in the United States there were some within the US intelligence community who believed that his case should not have been closed, that the young imam was potentially connected to 9/11 and that all leads on him had not been pursued. Some believed he should not have been allowed to leave the United States. “When he left town, it was as if the
air went out of the balloon
,” said one FBI source. Yet, according to the 9/11 Commission, the investigation into Awlaki's alleged involvement with the 9/11 hijackers did not produce evidence that “was considered strong enough to
support a criminal prosecution
.”

In June 2002, the agents investigating him were able to get a
warrant issued
for his arrest, though they were skeptical he would return. The warrant was not issued for his alleged contacts with the 9/11 hijackers or for soliciting prostitutes, but rather for passport fraud, stemming from Awlaki's scholarship application back in the early 1990s, listing Yemen as his place of birth. When he arrived in the United States for college and applied for a Social Security number, he had also listed his birthplace as Yemen. When Awlaki was confronted about it at the time, he had
resolved the issue
with the US authorities, explaining that his Yemeni documents had been in error. Now, a decade later, the Feds wanted to reopen the case as a pretext to arrest him. “
We were ecstatic
that we were able to get a warrant on this guy,” recalled a former Joint Task Force agent. The charges they wanted to pin on him for passport fraud carried
up to ten years in prison
and could potentially be used as a vise to pressure him to cooperate further in the 9/11 investigation.

Whether he would ever return to the United States, the investigators did not know. They got the Treasury Department to put Awlaki's name into
the
TECS II
system, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, which meant that any interaction he had with US Customs or Immigration officials would prompt a “look out” alert and result in his detention. If he tried to enter the United States, the FBI would be informed immediately.

It seemed like a long shot.

But Awlaki did return, much sooner than anyone expected, and when he did, a series of events unfolded that raise serious questions about the nature of Awlaki's relationship with the FBI.

IN SANA'A,
Nasser Awlaki was arguing with his son. Anwar had told him he was done with living in the United States. The harassment from the FBI was too much, Muslims were being persecuted, jailed, investigated, he told Nasser. But the elder Awlaki would not give up his dream of having a truly American son and of him getting his PhD in the United States. “
Give it another shot
, Anwar,” Nasser told his son in September 2002. Nasser and his wife offered to take care of Anwar's elder son, Abdulrahman, and daughter, Maryam, while Anwar and his wife and their younger son, Abdullah, returned to Virginia to see if they could salvage their life in the States. “It was like a trial,” Nasser recalled. “If they found things will be good” in the United States, then Nasser would bring Abdulrahman and Maryam to join their parents. Anwar finally agreed. “It was really under encouragement from me. I told him, ‘Go back, and see how things are, and if everything is OK, continue your PhD at George Washington University,'” said Nasser.

The FBI, it appears, had gotten wind of Anwar's plans. On October 8, 2002, Awlaki was the subject of a classified, limited-distribution FBI Electronic Communications (EC)
intelligence memo
. Its contents remain classified. The next day, on October 9, 2002, the US Attorney's Office in Colorado abruptly
filed a motion
to have the warrant for Awlaki's arrest vacated and dismissed. The US Attorney who withdrew the warrant said that the government had determined there was not enough evidence to win a conviction, adding that Awlaki could not be charged for “
having a bad reputation
.” Two days after the FBI EC memo on Awlaki was sent and a day after the motion to quash the warrant for his arrest was filed, Awlaki and his family had
arrived at JFK Airport
in New York on a flight from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, landing just after 6:00 a.m. When Awlaki went through passport control, his name popped up on the TECS II and terrorism watch lists. The reason provided on screen was: “
ANTI-TERRORIST PASSENGER
.
” When agents searched their databases, they also discovered the warrant that the US Attorney's Office in Colorado was trying to get vacated. It was still
registering as active
. Awlaki was pulled aside by Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) agents and, with his family, detained in a special screening area of the airport for
three hours
. “Subject was escorted to INS primary and secondary by U.S. Customs.
He is a match
,” was the message recorded by the agents in their incident log. Their
luggage was searched
and the Customs officials informed their superiors that they had Awlaki in custody. They tried to reach the FBI special agent listed as the point of contact in the warnings that had popped up on their screens when Awlaki came through. But initially they could not get through to that agent, Wade Ammerman, because his cell phone
number was invalid
.