Find, Fix, Finish (11 page)
Authors: Aki Peritz,Eric Rosenbach
The irrepressible KSM was interested in securing capital and access to men willing to follow his command. In 1996 he made his way to Afghanistan for an audience with bin Laden, who had heard about his exploits in Southeast Asia. The two men, along with Mohammad Atef, met in bin Laden’s camp in the mountain redoubt of Tora Bora on the borderlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan. There, in the narrow paths where bin Laden and his crew would eventually flee after September 2001, he laid out plans to strike the US homeland. Since the mid-1990s, he had constructed a plan to hijack ten planes simultaneously, crash them into sites in California, Washington State, nuclear power plants, CIA and FBI headquarters, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Capitol building.
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KSM would save the most operatic aspect for himself. He would personally hijack the last plane, murder all the male passengers, make a speech denouncing the US, then land the aircraft and turn himself in to law enforcement. Being caught and executed by US authorities was always his master plan, allowing KSM to become the martyr of martyrs.
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KSM would save the most operatic aspect for himself. He would personally hijack the last plane, murder all the male passengers, make a speech denouncing the US, then land the aircraft and turn himself in to law enforcement. Being caught and executed by US authorities was always his master plan, allowing KSM to become the martyr of martyrs.
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At the time, bin Laden was not impressed with the plot, and shelved the “planes operation.” Evidently KSM was convincing enough, however, for bin Laden to ask him to swear
bayat
to him, but KSM refused. To him, al-Qaeda’s leaders would be the venture capitalists, the “angel investors” who would provide funds and suicide personnel but not serve as his board of directors. KSM also maintained close relations with Sayyaf, who was aligned with Ahmad Shah Masood, leader of the anti-Taliban, anti-al-Qaeda Northern Alliance.
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This proved to be politically problematic. KSM’s relationship with Sayyaf and Masood would make him think twice before aligning himself with their deadly rivals—and Masood’s later assassins.
bayat
to him, but KSM refused. To him, al-Qaeda’s leaders would be the venture capitalists, the “angel investors” who would provide funds and suicide personnel but not serve as his board of directors. KSM also maintained close relations with Sayyaf, who was aligned with Ahmad Shah Masood, leader of the anti-Taliban, anti-al-Qaeda Northern Alliance.
10
This proved to be politically problematic. KSM’s relationship with Sayyaf and Masood would make him think twice before aligning himself with their deadly rivals—and Masood’s later assassins.
Al-Qaeda’s 1998 attack on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania convinced KSM that the group was dedicated to broad anti-US efforts. Soon he reconnected with bin Laden and Atef and put the planes plan into motion in the spring of 1999. KSM was in the driver’s seat, and the trio—but, surprisingly, not Ayman al-Zawahiri—picked the targets and selected the operatives for the mission.
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Since KSM had the most experience abroad, he instructed the operatives on culture and travel in the US, collecting information on flight schools—even purchasing computer flight simulator software for his students.
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KSM was so singularly focused on the planes operation that he did not swear allegiance to bin Laden until
after
9/11 so that he could ignore a directive from al-Qaeda to halt the plot in the event that the group got cold feet.
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Since KSM had the most experience abroad, he instructed the operatives on culture and travel in the US, collecting information on flight schools—even purchasing computer flight simulator software for his students.
12
KSM was so singularly focused on the planes operation that he did not swear allegiance to bin Laden until
after
9/11 so that he could ignore a directive from al-Qaeda to halt the plot in the event that the group got cold feet.
13
On that crisp Tuesday morning in September 2001, KSM, and his compatriots Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, Anmar al-Balochi, and Jaffar al-Tayer, met in an Internet café in Karachi, Pakistan, watching their cruel handiwork unfold in New York and Washington DC in real time.
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They then went to a safe house to observe the aftermath on satellite TV. They repeatedly congratulated themselves on how well their plot had unfolded. They had carried out the most devastating attack on US soil ever, and they were about to become the most wanted men on earth.
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They then went to a safe house to observe the aftermath on satellite TV. They repeatedly congratulated themselves on how well their plot had unfolded. They had carried out the most devastating attack on US soil ever, and they were about to become the most wanted men on earth.
In spite of his central role in the most devastating attack in US history, KSM was not well-known outside of intelligence circles. Indeed, it was not until Abu Zubaydah’s capture by US and Pakistani forces in March 2002 and subsequent debriefings that the US knew for sure that KSM was 9/11’s mastermind, according to a June 2005 CIA intelligence assessment.
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KSM dropped out of sight after the 9/11 attacks and the fall of al-Qaeda’s Afghan sanctuary, spending much of 2002 helping operatives obtain safe passage from their collapsing bases in Kandahar and elsewhere into Pakistan and the Middle East.
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Still, he planned other follow-on plots during this time, including hijacking airplanes to slam into London’s Heathrow airport. Given the fierce US counterattack after 9/11 and the need for increased security, however, these plots didn’t progress beyond the planning stage.
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Still, he planned other follow-on plots during this time, including hijacking airplanes to slam into London’s Heathrow airport. Given the fierce US counterattack after 9/11 and the need for increased security, however, these plots didn’t progress beyond the planning stage.
But KSM and some of his colleagues could not resist a taste of the media spotlight. In April 2002 he contacted and met with Yosri Fouda of the Al Jazeera satellite channel in Karachi to discuss the 9/11 attacks. Fouda later recalled that he “looked Khalid in the eye and asked: ‘Did you do it?’ But Khalid didn’t flinch [replying,] ‘I am the head of the al-Qaeda military committee . . . and Ramzi [bin al-Shibh] is the coordinator of the Holy Tuesday operation. And yes, we did it.’”
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Despite America’s expensive high-tech infrastructure, it was an old-fashioned personal betrayal that allowed security services to sweep in and grab KSM. An informant—a walk-in who would receive $25 million for his efforts and a new life in America—met with KSM in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in March 2003. At one point, he excused himself to use the toilet, where he feverishly sent a text message to authorities: “I am with KSM.”
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Who could have gotten so close to a paranoid sociopath like KSM? His identity remains a closely guarded secret, but chances are that it wasn’t a member of al-Qaeda, for the US has not had much luck recruiting members of the group. The limited reporting on his identity suggests he was “a little guy who looked like a farmer.”
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George Tenet insisted that the asset betrayed KSM because he was motivated by religious zeal—although the $25 million bounty must have been a fine incentive, too.
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George Tenet insisted that the asset betrayed KSM because he was motivated by religious zeal—although the $25 million bounty must have been a fine incentive, too.
This individual would not have belonged to KSM’s inner professional circle, as those people would have given him up a long time ago had they had the chance or the inclination, but perhaps an individual who had a tangential relationship to KSM or his family. Given the ties that bind the Baluchs to the land, it might have been a person of consequence, such a religious figure from KSM’s ancestral hometown, and it would have been considered rude of the terrorist to refuse to break bread with him.
A little before two in the morning in early March, several heavily armed Pakistani officers broke down the door and ran upstairs to find the sleepy 9/11 mastermind along with his colleague Mustafa al-Hawsawi in one of the rooms.
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In the ensuing struggle with the elite Pakistani forces, KSM shot one of the officers in the leg. Ultimately KSM and al-Hawsawi were overwhelmed and dragged away.
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RENDITION20
In the ensuing struggle with the elite Pakistani forces, KSM shot one of the officers in the leg. Ultimately KSM and al-Hawsawi were overwhelmed and dragged away.
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After his arrest, US authorities whisked KSM from Pakistan outside the usual mechanisms of extradition—stopping at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, and the little-used Syzmany airport outside of Warsaw, among other places—in the finishing mechanism termed “rendition.”
Rendition, a controversial but productive national security tool, has been utilized by the US government to disrupt terror networks. A rendition occurs when the US, working in concert with another country, transfers a captured fugitive or suspect to another country without performing the formal diplomatic mechanisms of extradition .
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The captured individual may be transferred from the country where he was captured either to the US directly or to another foreign country (e.g., Pakistan to Egypt). George Tenet testified that prior to 9/11 the US rendered seventy individuals and brought at least twenty to the US for trial.
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The captured individual may be transferred from the country where he was captured either to the US directly or to another foreign country (e.g., Pakistan to Egypt). George Tenet testified that prior to 9/11 the US rendered seventy individuals and brought at least twenty to the US for trial.
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President Ronald Reagan authorized the first rendition in 1987 when he green-lighted the capture of Fawaz Younis, a Lebanese national implicated in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the death of a US Navy diver. US officials tricked Younis into sailing to a boat into international waters, where waiting FBI agents (with CIA assistance) detained and rendered him to the US for trial and subsequent conviction.
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The rendition program became an important counterterrorism tool in the mid-1990s, when President Bill Clinton, in a series of presidential decision directives (PDDs), established terrorism as a top intelligence priority and mandated that the intelligence community increase efforts to capture terrorists abroad.
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For example, the Pakistani authorities captured and then handed over KSM’s nephew Ramzi Yousef without formally extraditing him. Another person, Egyptian militant Talaat Fouad Qassem, was wanted in connection with the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981. The Croatian services discovered and detained him in 1995, then asked their US counterparts how to proceed. Since there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Egypt, the US served as the go-between for the Croats and the Egyptians, quietly delivering Qassem to the Egyptians. Egypt was extremely pleased to welcome the prisoner home. Qassem disappeared into the bowels of the Egyptian security system and was never heard from again.
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For example, the Pakistani authorities captured and then handed over KSM’s nephew Ramzi Yousef without formally extraditing him. Another person, Egyptian militant Talaat Fouad Qassem, was wanted in connection with the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981. The Croatian services discovered and detained him in 1995, then asked their US counterparts how to proceed. Since there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Egypt, the US served as the go-between for the Croats and the Egyptians, quietly delivering Qassem to the Egyptians. Egypt was extremely pleased to welcome the prisoner home. Qassem disappeared into the bowels of the Egyptian security system and was never heard from again.
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Under Clinton-era rules, nominal safeguards generally made sure that prisoners were not abused in foreign custody. For instance, the foreign country to which a suspect was rendered had to have a legal case pending against the suspect prior to rendition.
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Rendered individuals were, furthermore, supposed to be treated in accordance with international human rights norms within US and non-US custody.
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Furthermore, the US abstained from sending people to countries with poor human rights records.
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But these safeguards, it seems, were not always observed.
EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS27
Rendered individuals were, furthermore, supposed to be treated in accordance with international human rights norms within US and non-US custody.
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Furthermore, the US abstained from sending people to countries with poor human rights records.
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But these safeguards, it seems, were not always observed.
An “extraordinary rendition” occurs when American authorities render an individual without the consent of the host country. An Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion from 1989 stated that the executive can authorize US officials to violate the territorial sovereignty of a country that has contravened international legal norms. Given the complex logistics required for their execution and the diplomatic fiascos they can create, however, extraordinary renditions are a rarely used tool. Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, claimed the US never carried out an extraordinary rendition before 9/11.
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At least one case seems to undermine Benjamin’s assertion. President George H. W. Bush authorized the rendition of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain from Mexico after he was implicated in the torture and murder of a DEA officer.
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After being brought across the US-Mexico border, the doctor was later acquitted in federal court due to a lack of evidence. Had the CIA captured bin Laden in 1998 from Afghanistan and brought him to the US that, too, would have been an extraordinary rendition.
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After being brought across the US-Mexico border, the doctor was later acquitted in federal court due to a lack of evidence. Had the CIA captured bin Laden in 1998 from Afghanistan and brought him to the US that, too, would have been an extraordinary rendition.
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Renditions, extraordinary or otherwise, have advantages. First and foremost, rendition is one way of removing terror suspects from the streets. Captured and rendered terror suspects cannot harm US citizens and interests. The act of rendition may also disrupt terrorist plots in their planning phases, as individuals critical to the successful planning of a terrorist operation are incapacitated. KSM’s activities in South Asia and the Middle East were brought to a halt after his arrest.
Rendition also opens doors to intelligence gathering. The US can glean time-sensitive information by interrogating rendered individuals. According to George Tenet, after KSM was arrested and handed over to US custody for interrogation, he quickly provided actionable information that was used to arrest the leader and several top members of Jemaah Islamiya, an extremist group based in Southeast Asia.
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Once individuals leave US custody, American authorities lose the ability to control and monitor their treatment. “We have a responsibility of trying to ensure that [detainees] are properly treated,” former CIA director Porter Goss told the Senate in 2005. “And we try and do the best we can to guarantee that. But, of course, once they’re out of [our] control, there’s only so much we can do. But we do have an accountability program for those situations.”
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Notably, this has not stopped the US from rendering individuals to countries with lackluster human rights histories.
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Notably, this has not stopped the US from rendering individuals to countries with lackluster human rights histories.
Finally, the US legal system has strict standards governing the admission of evidence. One of the thorniest problems facing prosecutors of rendered suspects is that critical evidence is inadmissible either because it is classified or because it was acquired outside of constitutional evidence-gathering procedures. Conversely, as Georgetown University professor Daniel Byman has noted, “Many US allies in the Middle East have a far lower standard of evidence and are willing to bend what rules they have in response to a US request.”
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Rendering individuals to nations with lower evidentiary standards at trial maximizes the likelihood of long-term incarceration and diffuses the threat to American citizens and interests, while at the same time ensuring that US intelligence sources and methods remain secret.
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Rendering individuals to nations with lower evidentiary standards at trial maximizes the likelihood of long-term incarceration and diffuses the threat to American citizens and interests, while at the same time ensuring that US intelligence sources and methods remain secret.
In spite of these advantages, renditions pose legal, ethical, and political problems. Whereas formal extradition requires a warrant subject to independent review by both the State and Justice departments, the rendition process lacks this accountability.
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Renditions undermine the notion that the US is a nation of laws that adheres to global norms of conduct. As such, the act of rendition irritates US allies and can undermine otherwise friendly international relationships.
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Renditions undermine the notion that the US is a nation of laws that adheres to global norms of conduct. As such, the act of rendition irritates US allies and can undermine otherwise friendly international relationships.
The US also occasionally renders innocent individuals. Since intelligence is almost always based on incomplete, perishable information, the US sometimes renders the wrong people. Such mistakes make the US intelligence bureaucracy—specifically the CIA—look foolish and undermine the technique’s legitimacy. Perhaps the most egregious example was the rendition of Khaled al-Masri, a Lebanese-born German citizen who was mistaken for an al-Qaeda operative and rendered to Afghanistan. He was held for months under unpleasant circumstances before US officials recognized the mistake.
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In response to his kidnapping, al-Masri has filed several diplomatically embarrassing lawsuits against the US and Germany.
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In response to his kidnapping, al-Masri has filed several diplomatically embarrassing lawsuits against the US and Germany.
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