Aimen Dean - Nine Lives: My time as the West’s top spy inside al-Qaeda

Contents

Jihadi training camps in Afghanistan before 9/11

Loyalty to the treacherous is treachery in the eyes of God.

The betrayal of the treacherous is loyalty in the eyes of God.

Imam Ali

Note from the co-authors

When any spy emerges from the secret world to tell their story, questions are naturally asked about the veracity of their account. Britains intelligence services never comment publicly on such matters; nor is there generally a paper trail.

In the course of reporting on the threat from jihadi terrorism for the best part of two decades we have developed many trusted sources in and out of government on both sides of the Atlantic. This has allowed us to corroborate key details relating to Aimen Deans work for British intelligence. This and our own research has allowed us not only to confirm critical associations and events but establish beyond doubt that there simply wasnt another informant inside al-Qaeda like him. In the years immediately leading up to and following 9/11, Aimen Dean was by far the most important spy the West had inside al-Qaeda, with his identity among the closest guarded secrets in the history of British espionage.

Aimen would probably never have contemplated writing a book had his cover not been blown by an intelligence leak in the United States. But he believes now is the right time to tell his story. His experiences and insights shed great light on the evolution of jihadi terrorism and what it will take to confront one of the great challenges of our times. Nobody can recall every last detail of their life perfectly, nor the exact order and date of every encounter. The chronology presented in this book is the result of many hours of research on the events he witnessed and the individuals he met. In describing technical aspects related to al-Qaedas efforts to develop explosives, chemicals and poisons we took great care not to go beyond chemistry and details already in the public domain in the news media, academic studies, court documents, government reports and the like. As an extra precaution we consulted with leading experts on these types of weapons.

This book includes extensive notes. Those which may be of interest to the general reader are marked by stars in the text and included as footnotes. Substantive notes which may be of more interest to the specialist reader as well as citations are marked by numbers and are situated at the back of the book in the chapter-by-chapter endnotes. We also include a cast of characters, as well as a map of Afghanistan and Pakistan showing the location of jihadi training camps before 9/11. The exact position of the Khalden camp in relation to the town of Khost has never been definitively established by academic researchers. Our placement is based on Aimens best recollection.

In several cases we have used pseudonyms to conceal the identity of individuals for a variety of reasons and this is made clear each time in the text. We refer to British intelligence officials by pseudonyms. This book includes quotations from the Koran and the hadith (the collected sayings of the Prophet Mohammed). These have been translated by Aimen. Hadith are cited by collection and their order number in the collection. Alternative English translations of the major collections are available on websites such as sunnah.com. The hadith citations in this book refer to the Arabic collections. The English numbering can be different because of the way translators have split up hadith . After the first reference the authors have omitted the prefix al- for some recurring names.

Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister, April 2018

Prologue: A Wanted Man

2016 2018

I looked out at the broiling haze enveloping Dubai. It was an August afternoon in 2016 and I comforted myself with the thought that the month after next the sapping humidity would begin to ease.

I was packing for a family wedding in Bahrain, not one I was looking forward to in the mid-summer torpor. But it was the marriage of the oldest son of my eldest brother, Moheddin. I could hardly say no.

It was to be an all-male affair, in accordance with the conservative customs of my family. My wife wasnt coming to Bahrain but she was uneasy about my trip.

My five brothers and I had grown up in Saudi Arabia up the coast and across the causeway from Bahrain, but the tiny pearl-shaped kingdom was our homeland. We carried Bahraini passports and for different reasons we had enemies there. Moheddin was a veteran of the Afghan jihad and had held a government job in Saudi Arabia until forced to leave the Kingdom because of an unlucky and unwitting connection to an al-Qaeda suicide bomber.

Once I had sworn an oath of allegiance in person to Osama bin Laden and worked on al-Qaeda explosives and poisons experiments. But al-Qaedas callous indifference to civilian casualties and the madness of a global campaign of terrorism were too much for me to stomach. It had corrupted the cause in which I believed: defending Muslims wherever they might be.

And so, in the parlance of espionage, I had been turned by British intelligence. I was not an unwilling partner. In fact, I welcomed the chance to expiate any misdeeds during my four years as a jihadi. For the better part of a decade I had been one of the very few Western spies inside al-Qaeda until outed, by description if not by name, thanks to a clumsy leak that the British suspected emanated from the White House.

Eventually, someone in al-Qaeda joined the dots and worked out that the leaks pointed towards me as the informant. One of the groups most senior figures denounced me as a spy, and the dreaded fatwah followed. It was a religious command ordering my liquidation.

But here I was eight years later still in one piece. Some days, I even forgot that there were people out there who wanted to slit my throat. Surely by now it was a little late for the fatwah to be carried out? Many of those who wanted me dead had themselves been killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia or were staring at the walls of a jail cell somewhere between Guantnamo Bay and Kabul.

My nephew came to our wedding; I have to go to his, I told my wife. Theres really nothing to worry about.

She looked pale. Three months pregnant, she was more than normally prone to anxiety.

And look, I continued, taking her hand, Ill be there less than twenty-four hours. The bad guys wont even know Im in Bahrain.

Tears gathered in her eyes.

I just dont want you to go.

Then, on the morning of 29 August, three days before the wedding, the groom-to-be called. ? Uncle, he said, sounding less than effusive. Dad says hi, but hes had a message. The security services called. They said they understood you were planning to come to Bahrain. Theres a threat against your life; they recommend you stay away. They say that in any case they are sending police officers to the wedding.

It is rare that I am speechless, but for a few moments I said nothing. The combination of the news and my wifes intuition had knocked the wind out of me. Its often at such moments that one notices something trivial and irrelevant. I remember looking out of the window of our apartment towards the Arabian Gulf, and tracing the graceful loops of a hang glider drifting towards the beach.

I turned abruptly to see if my wife was listening. Thankfully, she had gone to lie down.

Its unbelievable, I said to my nephew. Does your father have any idea who it is?

Hes been asking questions. He thinks its Yasser Kamal and his brother Omar. Theyve been planning it for six weeks.