Find, Fix, Finish (28 page)
Authors: Aki Peritz,Eric Rosenbach
Military affairs may not have been his strong suit, but he seemed a relatively successful organizer during his term. After the failed bombing attempt in New York City by Afghan immigrant and US permanent resident Najibullah Zazi, the US discovered that Shaykh Said had been in contact with Zazi through a middleman in the run-up to the operation.
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By the end of 2009, he could claim credit for another major success: a suicide bomber struck the CIA’s base at Khost, Afghanistan, killing multiple CIA officers and contractors, as well as a Jordanian case officer.
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By the end of 2009, he could claim credit for another major success: a suicide bomber struck the CIA’s base at Khost, Afghanistan, killing multiple CIA officers and contractors, as well as a Jordanian case officer.
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In August 2008 Pakistani officials claimed Shaykh Said died in the Bajaur tribal area. But as the dust settled, it looked to be a different person with the same name. Shaykh Said the al-Qaeda leader later reemerged unscathed.
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Almost two years later, in May 2010, al-Qaeda announced that he had been killed in Pakistan along with his wife, three of his daughters, and several other men, women, and children.
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Almost two years later, in May 2010, al-Qaeda announced that he had been killed in Pakistan along with his wife, three of his daughters, and several other men, women, and children.
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There is little public information available on how Shaykh Said was found, tracked, and subsequently eliminated. US officials only indicated that there was good reason to believe al-Qaeda’s announcement was accurate, and that he was thought to have died in a missile strike sometime in late May.
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This characterization suggests that either the CIA wanted to keep his death secret while monitoring militant communications, or that he was a victim of a strike under the new policy authorizing the Agency to eliminate targets that appear to be al-Qaeda. Two Pakistani intelligence officials later told the Associated Press that Shaykh Said had died on May 21 in North Waziristan, but that the bodies had not been recovered and that his death was confirmed only by local tribal elders and the Taliban.
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Another Pakistani official said the drone attack had targeted a house owned by a tribesman some twenty-five kilometers west of Miranshah.
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This characterization suggests that either the CIA wanted to keep his death secret while monitoring militant communications, or that he was a victim of a strike under the new policy authorizing the Agency to eliminate targets that appear to be al-Qaeda. Two Pakistani intelligence officials later told the Associated Press that Shaykh Said had died on May 21 in North Waziristan, but that the bodies had not been recovered and that his death was confirmed only by local tribal elders and the Taliban.
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Another Pakistani official said the drone attack had targeted a house owned by a tribesman some twenty-five kilometers west of Miranshah.
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As well as being, in the characterization of American officials, “the group’s chief operating officer,”
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Shaykh Said was the link between al-Qaeda and deep-pocketed donors in the Arabian Peninsula and elsewhere who kept the terrorist network in financial health. These supporters now lacked a trusted intermediary for their money—potentially isolating well-heeled extremist sympathizers unwilling to extend trust to an inexperienced replacement who might expose their involvement with a careless mistake.
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The effect of the campaign to bring the hammer down on al-Qaeda and its top operatives extended into its Persian Gulf–based financiers and facilitators, who feared being targeted for financial sanctions.
LESSONS FOR FUTURE FIND OPERATIONS109
Shaykh Said was the link between al-Qaeda and deep-pocketed donors in the Arabian Peninsula and elsewhere who kept the terrorist network in financial health. These supporters now lacked a trusted intermediary for their money—potentially isolating well-heeled extremist sympathizers unwilling to extend trust to an inexperienced replacement who might expose their involvement with a careless mistake.
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The effect of the campaign to bring the hammer down on al-Qaeda and its top operatives extended into its Persian Gulf–based financiers and facilitators, who feared being targeted for financial sanctions.
Two others additionally appeared on the roster of al-Qaeda’s number 3: Abu Ubaydah al-Masri and Usama al-Kini. Each served as operational commander before and after Abu Layth, respectively. These two men caused great mayhem during their lives, and their dispatch was not a source of much lamentation, except among those in al-Qaeda. Abu Ubaydah played an integral part in the July 2005 London transit bombings, as well as the star-crossed Operation Overt, and al-Kini was integral to the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Abu Ubaydah, an expert bomb maker, had the dubious distinction of being the only al-Qaeda number 3 who was neither captured nor killed by American ordinance. Rather, in late 2007, he died from complications from Hepatitis C, a particularly unpleasant way to die.
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Usama died on New Year’s Day 2009 in much the same manner as his predecessors—via a Hellfire missile, courtesy of an American UAV. While he was certainly an ambitious leader—he tried to assassinate Benazir Bhutto and was responsible for the Islamabad Marriott bombing in September 2008 that left dozens dead, including the Czech ambassador to Pakistan
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—relatively little is known publicly about him, aside from his being one of the few al-Qaeda members from Kenya.
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—relatively little is known publicly about him, aside from his being one of the few al-Qaeda members from Kenya.
The campaign to neutralize al-Qaeda’s operational commanders forced the US to reorganize many of its existing structures to streamline the find aspect of the find-fix-finish doctrine. By pinpointing al-Qaeda’s operational commander, the US successfully disrupted the organization and communicated the message that taking the reins of a terrorist campaign against the US is very dangerous.
The intense manhunts showed that finding and eliminating terrorist operatives from the sky offered operational ease but carried certain disadvantages. A militant target could be eliminated in a single operation, whereas on the ground several patient and methodical steps were usually required to get even marginally close to a target. Capture operations on the ground not only demand a greater cooperation with foreign partners and better operational security to prevent leaks, but also increased risk to the human beings involved. However, with aerial elimination there is greater risk of collateral damage, alienation of the local public, and the chilling of the intelligence trail. With the high value target eliminated, analysts lose the chance to repeatedly tap into their expertise and insight as new leaders appear or tactics change, and they have fewer means of reexamining the key assumptions under which they are crafting the analysis. Over the long run, this approach can make efforts to take down a large network increasingly difficult.
The second lesson is that technological dominance gives the US a critical advantage in cutting off al-Qaeda’s ability to talk, travel, and broadcast its message. Mobile and satellite phone technology, key communication resources for anyone in the twenty-first century, can prove fatal to many in al-Qaeda. The combination of good targeting analysis, sophisticated remote sensors, on-the-ground assets, and persistent surveillance tools such as UAVs also made traveling a dangerous activity for al-Qaeda leaders. Propaganda efforts backfired when sophisticated voice analysis and computer-driven terrain mapping revealed key details about where and when a leader spoke.
The close integration of good collection and analysis can create an operational atmosphere so stifling that terrorist leaders spend most of their time in fear of discovery, rather than successfully carrying off attacks. The more varied the sources of information the US used in tracking wanted operatives—including paid informants, liaison intelligence exchanges, overhead surveillance, and electronic intercepts—the more raw information analysts found at their disposal to understand and dissect the threat.
Finally, cultivating effective counterterrorism cooperation with foreign partners remains critical to maintaining a decisive advantage and denying terrorists safe haven. It is often difficult work, and sometimes requires a clever mix of intimidation and accommodation. The 2008 escalation of the drone program put suffocating pressure on al-Qaeda but also stirred public resentment and sidestepped the systemic problem of forging a deeper working relationship with Pakistan. When it expanded the program from a narrow effort aimed at decapitating the al-Qaeda leadership to a large-scale campaign of air strikes based on signatures of convoys, safe houses, training camps, and weapon caches, the US waded into a much murkier area. Innocent civilians and marginally aligned militants became victims of US retaliation, significantly expanding the number of individuals who harbor anti-American feelings—individuals who, by the blood of their deceased relatives and the smoking wreckage of their destroyed homes, might later dedicate their lives to striking America. Any number of these people could and may, with time and training, become the next number 3.
CHAPTER 9
THE ENEMY WITHIN
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n early September 2009, Najibullah Zazi, a citizen of Afghanistan and legal permanent resident of the United States, left his nondescript apartment in a sprawling outer suburb of Denver, nonchalantly climbed into a cheap rental car, started the engine, and headed east.
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It was to be a long journey of almost 2,000 miles, from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains across much of the United States, already beginning to show its autumn colors. But this was not a pleasure trip. Rather, Zazi was dead set on arriving at his destination—New York City—and timing was key.
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n early September 2009, Najibullah Zazi, a citizen of Afghanistan and legal permanent resident of the United States, left his nondescript apartment in a sprawling outer suburb of Denver, nonchalantly climbed into a cheap rental car, started the engine, and headed east.
1
It was to be a long journey of almost 2,000 miles, from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains across much of the United States, already beginning to show its autumn colors. But this was not a pleasure trip. Rather, Zazi was dead set on arriving at his destination—New York City—and timing was key.
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Zazi didn’t realize as he gunned the motor and headed past the Southland Shopping Mall, the Palms Tanning Resort, and the other forgettable big box stores that dotted the American landscape that the FBI was closely watching his every move. In fact, FBI agents had been monitoring him for months; they knew that he had traveled to a terrorist training camp earlier that year and had been stockpiling acetone and hydrogen peroxide, two base components for especially potent explosives. FBI electronic surveillance had also revealed that Zazi had been calling around to his accomplices trying to determine the right mixture to create an impactful explosion.
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Zazi was set to arrive in New York City right before the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, when President Barack Obama would give a speech near the open worksite where the World Trade Center towers once stood. A week later, the General Assembly of the United Nations would be in session.
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Before he could act, the FBI raided various homes and offices in Queens and Aurora, Colorado. By the end of the month, Zazi was in handcuffs, arrested and indicted for conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property in the United States and conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support to al-Qaeda. Zazi and two associates—pals from high school—had apparently intended to detonate bombs strapped to their bodies on the underground trains traveling the 1, 2, 3 and 4, 5, 6 lines of New York’s subway system.
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Striking these busy transit lines simultaneously would have caused mayhem and death, the type of coordinated attack that has been al-Qaeda’s calling card.
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Striking these busy transit lines simultaneously would have caused mayhem and death, the type of coordinated attack that has been al-Qaeda’s calling card.
The Zazi affair was the type of domestic terrorist plot the US government had galvanized to counter following the 9/11 attacks. In 2004 the domestic intelligence agencies had been told that they were the least prepared to handle individual threats prior to 2001. Although the efforts of the US law enforcement agencies to restructure and improve cooperation were by no means perfect, as the case of Zazi demonstrated, they had achieved some successes, particularly concerning interagency and international cooperation.
The year 1985 was one of the bloodiest in the Soviet-Afghan war. Mikhail Gorbachev had just come to power and had escalated the number of Soviet troops within Afghanistan with the hope of ending the war quickly and decisively. Reports from that year claim that more than half of the villages in Afghanistan were bombed, forcing millions of refugees across the border into neighboring Pakistan.
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It was into this violent political maelstrom that Najibullah Zazi was born in Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan, the third of five children. His family remained in war-torn Afghanistan until 1992—the year the government of the Republic of Afghanistan collapsed, further escalating the conflict—before moving across the border to Peshawar, Pakistan.
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It was into this violent political maelstrom that Najibullah Zazi was born in Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan, the third of five children. His family remained in war-torn Afghanistan until 1992—the year the government of the Republic of Afghanistan collapsed, further escalating the conflict—before moving across the border to Peshawar, Pakistan.
Not long after the family’s arrival in Pakistan, Zazi’s father, Mohammad Wali Zazi, left for Flushing, Queens, where he worked as a taxi driver. When Zazi turned fourteen, his father succeeded in bringing the family to New York.
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A jumble of American and Afghan influences thus defined Zazi’s youth; according to his friends, he kept both a basketball and a prayer mat with him at all times.
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He played video games, the lottery, and pool, but he also regularly prayed with his neighbors at the local Afghan mosque Masjid Hazrat Abu Bakr, where he would later volunteer as a janitor. Zazi was not a strong student—his father’s step-uncle later told the press he was a “dumb kid.” He quickly dropped out of high school to help his father support the family.
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A jumble of American and Afghan influences thus defined Zazi’s youth; according to his friends, he kept both a basketball and a prayer mat with him at all times.
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He played video games, the lottery, and pool, but he also regularly prayed with his neighbors at the local Afghan mosque Masjid Hazrat Abu Bakr, where he would later volunteer as a janitor. Zazi was not a strong student—his father’s step-uncle later told the press he was a “dumb kid.” He quickly dropped out of high school to help his father support the family.
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Zazi turned sixteen shortly before the 9/11 attacks. His friends recall that he opposed terror throughout his teenage years and said after the attacks, “I don’t know how people do things like this. I’d never do anything like that.”
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But the young Zazi may have had contact with some who openly preached violence and extremism. Saifur Rahman Halimi, a chief representative of the powerful Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, lived in the same building as Zazi’s family and attended the same mosque in Queens.
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Allegedly, Halimi championed Hekmatyar’s cause in Queens and openly supported global jihad. But upon hearing about Zazi’s arrest, Halimi said that he was shocked that Zazi heeded al-Qaeda’s clarion call. Although he claims not to have spoken with Zazi or his family for six years, he told a reporter that Zazi “was not such a person. He was busy with his work.”
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Allegedly, Halimi championed Hekmatyar’s cause in Queens and openly supported global jihad. But upon hearing about Zazi’s arrest, Halimi said that he was shocked that Zazi heeded al-Qaeda’s clarion call. Although he claims not to have spoken with Zazi or his family for six years, he told a reporter that Zazi “was not such a person. He was busy with his work.”
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To help support his family, Zazi worked at a local supermarket and then began running his father’s coffee cart, which stood only blocks from the World Trade Center site in Manhattan’s financial district. One of Zazi’s customers remembered him as a friendly kid: “He was well spoken. He always said good morning to everyone. He used to memorize what everyone needed in the morning.”
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Other customers also remember the “God Bless America” sign on his cart. At this point, according to his friend Ahmad Zaraei, he “wasn’t that much into religion.”
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But, Zaraei continued, “that changed.”
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Other customers also remember the “God Bless America” sign on his cart. At this point, according to his friend Ahmad Zaraei, he “wasn’t that much into religion.”
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But, Zaraei continued, “that changed.”
In 2006, Zazi flew back to Peshawar, where he wed his cousin in an arranged marriage.
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His wife, who still lived in Pakistan and cared for their two children at the time of his arrest, had difficulty getting permission to accompany Zazi to the US.
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Zazi visited her in Peshawar in 2007 and 2008. Mohammed Yousufzai, a fellow cart operator in the financial district, noted that after Zazi began traveling to Pakistan, he changed, growing out his beard, donning tunics instead of Western clothes, carrying prayer beads, and playing religious music.
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Zazi’s customers also noticed his increasing religiosity.
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His wife, who still lived in Pakistan and cared for their two children at the time of his arrest, had difficulty getting permission to accompany Zazi to the US.
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Zazi visited her in Peshawar in 2007 and 2008. Mohammed Yousufzai, a fellow cart operator in the financial district, noted that after Zazi began traveling to Pakistan, he changed, growing out his beard, donning tunics instead of Western clothes, carrying prayer beads, and playing religious music.
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Zazi’s customers also noticed his increasing religiosity.
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