Dirty Wars (15 page)

Ammerman was one of the lead agents in the Awlaki investigation. A senior Customs official, David Kane, told the agents holding Awlaki that he would
track down Ammerman
. By coincidence, Kane had years earlier
worked the Awlaki case
when Awlaki was an imam in San Diego. Kane was then relocated to Virginia and had also investigated Awlaki as part of Operation Green Quest, targeting terror-financing networks. Although he had tried to link Awlaki to those networks, Kane said, “
We did not find a link
between that group and Awlaki.” So, Kane knew exactly who it was that Customs had at JFK Airport on October 10, 2002. But when Kane finally reached Agent Ammerman, he told Kane that Awlaki's “warrant had been rescinded” and that he should be released. Kane said the FBI offered “
no explanation
” for the order. In the incident log, the Customs officials noted that they had “
RECEIVED A CALL FROM S
/
A KANE NOTIFYING US THE WARRANT ISSUED BY THE STATE DEPT. HAD BEEN PULLED BACK,
” adding that a representative of the FBI's Washington Field Office had called them regarding the Colorado warrant, saying “
THE WARRANT HAD BEEN REMOVED ON
10/9.” Curiously, the warrant was
not actually removed until
October 11.

The US documents describing Awlaki's detention at JFK noted that the Awlakis were released by the agents at 9:20 a.m. “with
thanks for their
” patience and given a “comment card” to describe their experience with the US authorities. An official from Saudi Arabian Airlines then escorted the Awlakis to their connecting flight to Washington, DC. “The custom officials were quite baffled at the situation and didn't know what to say,” Awlaki later recalled. “
I got an apology
from one of them with a weird face on him. Actually I myself was shocked and asked them: Is that it? They said, yes sir, that's it. You are free to board!” The next day, the warrant for Awlaki's arrest was officially vacated, though the FBI clearly knew about it a day before it happened.

Now free to travel in the United States, Awlaki returned to Virginia. He reconnected with old colleagues and began assessing what, if any, future he could envision for his family in the United States. But then, a curious meeting happened. In October 2002, Awlaki paid a visit to
another charismatic preacher
,
an Iraqi American named Ali al Timimi. Timimi was the
lead lecturer
at Dar al Arqam, an Islamic center in Falls Church, Virginia. But Timimi was not just a religious figure; he was also a brilliant young scientist who had attended the elite Georgetown Day School in DC and had a degree in biology. At the time of Awlaki's visit, he was pursuing a PhD and working on
cancer gene research
. Timimi was identified by the FBI for potential involvement in the “
anthrax plots
” that were uncovered after 9/11, and the Bureau also believed he might be involved with a network that sought to train Western jihadists on US soil. No charges were ever brought against Timini in connection with the anthrax investigation.

The meeting between Timimi and Awlaki would help form the basis for an alternative theory on Awlaki's relationship with the FBI; one in which he was not simply the target or person of interest in an investigation.

Had the FBI actually flipped Anwar Awlaki and made him an informant?

The trail of clues supporting this theory is compelling. Special Agent Ammerman, who facilitated Awlaki's release at JFK Airport, had not only worked the Awlaki case; he was also
one of the lead investigators
into Timimi after 9/11. “
I don't think anyone wants me talking
‘bout what I was involved in,” Ammerman told Catherine Herridge, a Fox News journalist who investigated the case and had close contacts with US law enforcement officials. Herridge believed that the FBI “was
trying to cultivate
al Awlaki as a human intelligence asset,” as Awlaki himself had alleged years earlier. But had they succeeded?

When Awlaki came to his home, Timimi said, he started talking about recruiting Western jihadists. “Ali had never, in his whole life,
even talked to the guy
or met him,” Timimi's lawyer, Edward MacMahon, told me. “Awlaki just showed up at the guy's house and asked him if he could assist him in finding young men to join the jihad.” MacMahon said that Timimi was suspicious of Awlaki showing up “completely out of the blue.” At the time, the Muslim community was under intense scrutiny from the government—Islamic groups had been raided, Muslims were being regularly detained for questioning and there were justifiable suspicions that moles and informants were infiltrating organizations. “You'd have to go back in time to understand,” said MacMahon. “The community was sure there were all kinds of investigations and Ali was a pretty prominent Muslim. I mean, just look: Why was the guy [Awlaki] there? Why was he asking somebody he'd never met in his whole life to help him get young men for the jihad? It just stunk of entrapment. Ali threw him out of the house.”

Timimi's friends said he suspected Awlaki may have been working with the FBI and
trying to set him up
. In 2003, Timimi's house was raided by federal agents. He was
ultimately convicted
on charges that he had incited
eleven young Muslims, mostly Americans, to join the Taliban in fighting the United States in Afghanistan. The prosecutors alleged his sermons helped inspire the “Northern Virginia Paintball Jihad,” which had trained with paintball guns to join the fight in Afghanistan. In the legal proceedings, Timimi asserted that he believed Awlaki was
wearing a wire
when he came to his house in late 2002 and that the FBI had recordings of the meeting. When Timimi's lawyers filed for the alleged tapes in discovery, government lawyers responded in writing, “Al-Timimi seeks the Court to order the government to produce tapes he suggests that Aulaqi made while visiting Al-Timimi. We are aware of no
authority for this request
.” MacMahon said that the government response suggested “it is
a national security issue
and that it was classified.” But it wasn't just the “out of the blue” nature of Awlaki's visit with Timimi that MacMahon found suspicious. “We thought [Awlaki] was wearing a wire, and we wanted to know how he got” to Timimi's house. MacMahon later learned that Awlaki was driven to the meeting with Timimi by Nabil Gharbieh, an alleged member of the conspiracy who later cooperated with prosecutors. “How does Anwar Awlaki end up at Ali's house?” asked MacMahon, before offering his own theory: “Because [Special Agent] Ammerman made Gharbieh take him there.”

Ammerman met with Awlaki when he returned to the DC area in October 2002 and was in fact the agent who
had Awlaki released
from JFK Airport so that Awlaki could make his flight to DC. Whether the two men discussed Timimi, we do not know. But there are other lingering hints at a connection. “In late 2002, the FBI's Washington field office received two similar tips from local Muslims: Timimi was running ‘an Islamic group known as the Dar al-Arqam' that had ‘conducted military-style training,' FBI special agent John Wyman would later write in an affidavit,” according to the
Washington Post
, adding, “Wyman and another agent, Wade Ammerman,
pounced on the tips
.”

Years later, this series of events spurred Republican congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia to demand answers from the FBI. In a letter to FBI director Mueller, Wolf asked: “
Is there any connection
between the timing of the FBI's EC [Electronic Communication] on Aulaqi, the motion to vacate his arrest warrant, and Aulaqi's sudden return to the U.S.?” Wolf also noted that “following his detention at Kennedy [Airport] early on the morning of October 10, 2002, an FBI agent—Special Agent Wade Ammerman in the Washington Field Office—ordered that Aulaqi be released by U.S. customs agents after having been detained on an outstanding warrant,” adding: “This is particularly questionable given the time of these events. The Colorado U.S. Attorney's motion to dismiss the warrant was not approved
until October 11, 2002, a day after the FBI ordered Aulaqi released into the U.S. Why would the FBI order Aulaqi's release while the warrant for his arrest remained active?” When journalists filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the October 8, 2002, FBI intelligence memo and other documents on Awlaki, they were rebuffed. The Bureau sent back “twenty-seven
pages of blankness
,” citing “national security and an executive order,” according to Herridge, the Fox journalist.

Of course, there are other theories about Awlaki's visit to the United States and his meeting with Timimi—namely, that Awlaki was actually attempting to recruit young Westerners for jihad. It is also possible that the FBI intervened when Awlaki was detained at JFK to free him because the Bureau wanted to follow him once he was in the United States to investigate his movements and his contacts. It is not uncommon for law enforcement to allow suspects or persons of interest to walk around believing they are free so that they can be monitored.

As for Timimi, he was eventually sentenced to life in prison. Among those who testified against him as
government witnesses
was Gharbieh, the man who drove Awlaki to meet Timimi. Timimi's legal team alleged that Timimi was railroaded in a “faux terror” trial born of the post-9/11 panic that another attack was imminent. MacMahon maintained that Timimi was prosecuted based on fears—not evidence. “They weren't going to take any kind of a chance,” he said. “But, we don't usually use our judicial system as kind of a holding pen like the British did with the Irish in Northern Ireland.”

MacMahon alleged that the FBI deliberately concealed Awlaki's role in the Timimi case and believed that had they acknowledged it, Timimi would have been able to use it as evidence in the fight for his freedom. “If they had disclosed that Ammerman facilitated the trip, then I would have gotten into it in detail, but they withheld that information,” he said. “The FBI just will not admit what they did. It would have been critical evidence in Ali's trial. The poor guy's serving life. You know, the charge in Ali's case was recruiting young men to go to the jihad. So, evidence that a government agent—somebody working for the government—came to him and asked him to do it—and he threw him out—would be admissible, would completely refute the charges.”

Years later, Representative Wolf pressed the US government for answers. “
How did Aulaqi end up
at the home of Ali al Timimi with a government witness shortly after he was allowed back into the U.S.? Was the FBI aware of this meeting in advance” of Awlaki's return? Whether Awlaki had worked with the FBI in attempting to secure an indictment against Timimi will likely never be known. Awlaki spoke on numerous occasions
of the FBI's attempts to turn him into an asset. Had they succeeded? “Wade Ammerman testified in [Timimi's] case. To me the evidence is overwhelming that Wade Ammerman tried to flip Anwar Awlaki. Or maybe even thought he had flipped him,” said MacMahon. “I mean, Awlaki was one of the only people in the United States with contact in several states with the hijackers. He was not your garden variety FBI flip target. How could they not have arrested this guy [Awlaki] when they had him in the office? They're chasing people that are playing paintball when they've got this guy in their office.”

Anwar “never told me he had the problem in New York,” Nasser recalled. What about Anwar's interactions with the FBI and possible attempts to flip him? “He never told me about this,” Nasser added. The FBI refused to shed light on what exactly happened with Awlaki in late 2002 and why. That leaves many unanswered questions, including ones that would weigh heavily on events to come. Did the Feds have Awlaki ensnared in their web because of threats of prosecution for soliciting prostitutes or his interactions with the hijackers? Did they blackmail him into cooperating? Was Awlaki cooperating with the FBI in an effort to pay his dues in return for being left alone by the government? If so, had he realized that the government would never leave him alone and he would forever be asked to work as an informant?

“My guess, and it is only a guess, is that there was a
plan to attempt a recruitment
,” a former senior FBI counterterrorism agent told me. “If Awlaki was pitched and pretended to accept, that would explain the dismissal of the warrant after he was released. My guess is that he pretended to cooperate for a while and then just split. This would also explain the FBI's reluctance to reveal more about the active case that they had in San Diego. Too embarrassing.” If this were the truth, it would be in neither party's interest to acknowledge it. In any case, said Nasser, Anwar “decided that it's not really good for him to stay around again in America.” In late December, Awlaki left the United States, this time for good. A year later, an FBI official was asked why Awlaki had been allowed to leave. “We don't know
how he got out
,” was the reply.

DJIBOUTI, WASHINGTON, DC, AND YEMEN,
2002—In mid-2002, US intelligence operatives discovered that the man they had fingered as one of the masterminds of the 2000 USS
Cole
bombing, Abu Ali al Harithi, was in Yemen. US officials had dubbed him “the
godfather of terror
in Yemen.” For months, JSOC teams and drones had been hunting him to no avail and US ambassador Edmund Hull had been
meeting with tribal officials
in Marib, paying them for information on Harithi's location and movements. Harithi used
multiple mobile phones
and regularly swapped out their SIM cards to avoid detection. On Sunday, November 3, the Special Ops signals intelligence team inside Yemen located Harithi in a compound in Marib after he used a mobile phone number that US intelligence had traced to him months earlier. “Our Special Ops had the
compound under surveillance
,” recalled General Michael DeLong, at the time deputy commander of US Central Command. They were “preparing to storm in when Ali exited with five of his associates. They got into SUVs and took off.”