A Traitor's Tale

  • Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl still has his face but not much else of his original identity. He was once a trusted lieutenant in the Jihadist organization of Osama bin Laden. For the past five years, he has been known in the corridors of the FBI only as CS1--Confidential Source 1. Now he has a completely new identity under the federal witness-protection program, because he is spilling the beans on the world's most-wanted terrorist.

    Al-Fadl sat in a New York City courtroom last week telling the world the intimate details he has been revealing to U.S. investigators over the years, about how bin Laden's Jihadist organization, called al Qaeda (the Base), works and how its terror conspiracies evolve. He is the dramatic first witness in the trial of four alleged minions of bin Laden's accused of conspiring to bomb two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, setting off twin blasts that killed 224 people, 12 of them Americans. Al-Fadl is not the only star witness expected to finger the Saudi-born financier, whom Washington calls "the most immediate and serious [terrorist] threat" to U.S. security today, for his nonstop terror attempts. Soon to come is Ali Mohamed, another Jihadist turned songbird seeking security in U.S. hands because he can tie bin Laden and several of his top lieutenants directly to the Nairobi bombing.

    So far, Al-Fadl's testimony is riveting stuff, revealing the anatomy of a sophisticated terrorist organization. The 38-year-old Sudanese spent two years in the U.S. in the mid-1980s before going off to join the mujahedin fighting Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. But he was an unknown "walk-in" the day he presented himself at the visa office of an American embassy in mid-1996, saying he sought not to receive a visa but to betray his terrorist boss. He said he had been a member of a group in Afghanistan that "wanted to make war against your country," until he stole organizational funds for himself and had to flee for his life. Now he wanted to warn his new protectors that bin Laden's outfit "might try to do something inside the U.S." or "try to make bomb against some embassy."

    That vague warning came two years before the explosions in Kenya and Tanzania. But from that moment, investigators began painstakingly corroborating the tale told them by CS1, which was based on his years as a founding member of al Qaeda. He told of traveling to a secret hideaway in Afghanistan where he swore his bayat, or complete allegiance, as the third member in the group bin Laden was setting up around 1990 to transform the Afghan rebellion into an anti-American jihad.

    Until he ratted to the Americans, Al-Fadl loyally carried out orders to manage al Qaeda front businesses in Sudan, study the terror tradecraft of explosives and disguises, and reach out to useful allies. On the stand, he has drawn a fine-lined portrait, spilling names of operatives and dissecting operational methods. He said his job included setting up the Sudan farms where many recruits were trained and overseeing the businesses that financed them. Al-Fadl said he was privy to the inner councils of al Qaeda that set policy, bought weapons, issued Islamic decrees and financed terrorist attacks. He described how Kalashnikov rifles were smuggled to Egypt's Al Jihad in camel caravans and a shipment of explosives was delivered by boat to a group in Yemen and guarded by Sudanese intelligence. He told how suicide bombers were taught to shave their beards, don Levi's and leave their Korans at home to allay suspicion when they set off on an assignment--exactly what one of the men on trial confessed he had done in 1998.

    And Al-Fadl offered chilling insight into bin Laden's grand plans. In late 1993, the witness testified, he tried to buy $1.5 million worth of uranium for al Qaeda, but he didn't know whether the stuff packed inside a 2-ft. cylinder he was shown was the real thing. Though Washington suspects the offer was bogus, Al-Fadl got a $10,000 "good job" bonus anyway.

    A taste for money was to prove his downfall. Irate that his privileged position did not pay more, Al-Fadl siphoned $110,000 in kickbacks from the organization's funds to buy himself land and a car. When bin Laden confronted him, said Al-Fadl, he offered forgiveness if all the money was returned. But unable to restore the funds, Al-Fadl fled. Since then he has pleaded guilty to charges of terrorist conspiracy in a secret proceeding, and faces up to 15 years in prison--unless his loquacity in New York earns him leniency.

    Al-Fadl's testimony has given the New York federal jury a basic grasp of bin Laden's operations, but Al-Fadl left the group two years before the embassy bombings. The trial defendants, two of whom face a possible death sentence, can expect to hear more damaging accusations from Ali Mohamed, the Egyptian-born, naturalized U.S. citizen who signed on with bin Laden shortly after his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1989. Once an instructor in Middle East warfare at Fort Bragg, Mohamed shifted his teaching talents to the paramilitary operations of al Qaeda. He trained bin Laden's personal-security guards and later helped set up the cell in Nairobi that eventually carried out the bombing. He has already pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy for his role.

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