Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield

5. The Enigma of Anwar Awlaki

THE UNITED KINGDOM, THE UNITED STATES AND YEMEN, 2002–2003—When Anwar Awlaki arrived in the United Kingdom, he called his wealthy uncle, Sheikh Saleh bin Fareed, who had a home in the south of England. “Uncle Saleh, I am here. May I come and see you?” Anwar asked. “You are welcome,” bin Fareed told him. When Anwar arrived at his uncle’s home, the two caught up on family affairs back in Yemen before the conversation turned to the events in the United States. “Do you have anything to do with what happened?” bin Fareed recalled asking him, knowing that Anwar had been interrogated multiple times by the FBI. He had also seen news reports alleging that Anwar had met with some of the hijackers. “I don’t have anything [to do with 9/11], whatsoever,” Anwar said, according to his uncle. “If I had anything to do with al Qaeda or those people, I would not be sitting with you in England today. I travel freely. In the UK they do not touch me.” Anwar told his uncle that US agents had told him, “We have nothing against you.” Anwar stayed with his uncle while he got situated in England and began preaching before Muslim audiences, at community groups, religious centers and mosques, with an increasing degree of passion, if not militancy, about the importance of defending and promoting Islam at a moment when he believed it was under assault. “He used to commute by train—he’d go to London, and he’d go to Birmingham, to give speeches, and he’d come back,” bin Fareed recalled.

In a speech he delivered during this period at the annual conference of the charity JIMAS, an Arabic acronym for the Association to Revive the Way of the Messenger, at the University of Leicester, Awlaki issued a challenge to Western Muslims to defend and preach their faith. “We should be concerned about what is happening to our neighbors, to our friends, to our coworkers, to the people whom we live with,” he said. “We’re not being concerned if we know that our neighbors and friends, their fate is hellfire and we’re doing nothing about it. So our first role as a Muslim minority of Muslims living among non-Muslims, is to proclaim the message publicly, and when we convey the message, we convey it in very plain and clear terms, with no confusion.” He cautioned them not to be aggressive in promoting Islam, saying they should be like UPS, DHL or FedEx delivery people. “Rather than knocking on the door with a hammer, and then when the person opens the door you throw the package in their face—no,” he said. “You knock on the door, very politely, and then when they open the door you have a big smile on your face.”

In mid-2002, Awlaki returned to Yemen to study at the famed Iman University in Sana’a. “I was given permission from the administration of the University…to attend any class at any level and I took advantage of this and attended classes in Tafsir [exegesis of the Koran] and Fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] for a period of a few months,” Awlaki later wrote, adding that he “also benefited from the teachings of Shaykh Abdul Majid al Zindani the Rector of the University.” But as Awlaki began to make his next moves, those investigating him in the United States had not forgotten about him.

While Awlaki traveled to Saudi Arabia and Yemen and studied Islam, back in the United States there were some within the US intelligence community who believed that his case should not have been closed, that the young imam was potentially connected to 9/11 and that all leads on him had not been pursued. Some believed he should not have been allowed to leave the United States. “When he left town, it was as if the air went out of the balloon,” said one FBI source. Yet, according to the 9/11 Commission, the investigation into Awlaki’s alleged involvement with the 9/11 hijackers did not produce evidence that “was considered strong enough to support a criminal prosecution.”

In June 2002, the agents investigating him were able to get a warrant issued for his arrest, though they were skeptical he would return. The warrant was not issued for his alleged contacts with the 9/11 hijackers or for soliciting prostitutes, but rather for passport fraud, stemming from Awlaki’s scholarship application back in the early 1990s, listing Yemen as his place of birth. When he arrived in the United States for college and applied for a Social Security number, he had also listed his birthplace as Yemen. When Awlaki was confronted about it at the time, he had resolved the issue with the US authorities, explaining that his Yemeni documents had been in error. Now, a decade later, the Feds wanted to reopen the case as a pretext to arrest him. “We were ecstatic that we were able to get a warrant on this guy,” recalled a former Joint Task Force agent. The charges they wanted to pin on him for passport fraud carried up to ten years in prison and could potentially be used as a vise to pressure him to cooperate further in the 9/11 investigation.

Whether he would ever return to the United States, the investigators did not know. They got the Treasury Department to put Awlaki’s name into the TECS II system, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, which meant that any interaction he had with US Customs or Immigration officials would prompt a “look out” alert and result in his detention. If he tried to enter the United States, the FBI would be informed immediately.

It seemed like a long shot.

But Awlaki did return, much sooner than anyone expected, and when he did, a series of events unfolded that raise serious questions about the nature of Awlaki’s relationship with the FBI.

IN SANA’A, Nasser Awlaki was arguing with his son. Anwar had told him he was done with living in the United States. The harassment from the FBI was too much, Muslims were being persecuted, jailed, investigated, he told Nasser. But the elder Awlaki would not give up his dream of having a truly American son and of him getting his PhD in the United States. “Give it another shot, Anwar,” Nasser told his son in September 2002. Nasser and his wife offered to take care of Anwar’s elder son, Abdulrahman, and daughter, Maryam, while Anwar and his wife and their younger son, Abdullah, returned to Virginia to see if they could salvage their life in the States. “It was like a trial,” Nasser recalled. “If they found things will be good” in the United States, then Nasser would bring Abdulrahman and Maryam to join their parents. Anwar finally agreed. “It was really under encouragement from me. I told him, ‘Go back, and see how things are, and if everything is OK, continue your PhD at George Washington University,’” said Nasser.

The FBI, it appears, had gotten wind of Anwar’s plans. On October 8, 2002, Awlaki was the subject of a classified, limited-distribution FBI Electronic Communications (EC) intelligence memo. Its contents remain classified. The next day, on October 9, 2002, the US Attorney’s Office in Colorado abruptly filed a motion to have the warrant for Awlaki’s arrest vacated and dismissed. The US Attorney who withdrew the warrant said that the government had determined there was not enough evidence to win a conviction, adding that Awlaki could not be charged for “having a bad reputation.” Two days after the FBI EC memo on Awlaki was sent and a day after the motion to quash the warrant for his arrest was filed, Awlaki and his family had arrived at JFK Airport in New York on a flight from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, landing just after 6:00 a.m. When Awlaki went through passport control, his name popped up on the TECS II and terrorism watch lists. The reason provided on screen was: “ANTI-TERRORIST PASSENGER.” When agents searched their databases, they also discovered the warrant that the US Attorney’s Office in Colorado was trying to get vacated. It was still registering as active. Awlaki was pulled aside by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents and, with his family, detained in a special screening area of the airport for three hours. “Subject was escorted to INS primary and secondary by U.S. Customs. He is a match,” was the message recorded by the agents in their incident log. Their luggage was searched and the Customs officials informed their superiors that they had Awlaki in custody. They tried to reach the FBI special agent listed as the point of contact in the warnings that had popped up on their screens when Awlaki came through. But initially they could not get through to that agent, Wade Ammerman, because his cell phone number was invalid.

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.